The Adventures of Kotohime
by Gaius Cornelius Tacitus
Summary: Tales of Gensokyo's maniacal princess.
1. Kotohime and the New Recruits

_**Kotohime and the New Recruits**_

"Now," said Kotohime as she flopped into her chair, shifting a bit to accommodate the baton-like _jitte_ stowed incongruously in the sash of her bright purple dress robes, "I'm sure you're both wondering why I called you to my offi..." She blinked and looked around for a moment. "To this tavern," she finished, absently brushing a strand of vivid red hair out of her face.

"And why _she's_ here too," one of her guests added grumpily.

The two women sharing the opposite side of the table could hardly have been more different. One, Kaguya Houraisan, was a perfect classical princess in attire, poise and beauty. Her waist-length black hair was worn in a traditional Hime cut with level bangs and long side locks, and she looked around at the tavern's smoky interior with an expression of polite interest, drawing stares and whispers from the bar's other patrons as they marveled at how she seemed to glow despite the dingy lighting.

Fujiwara no Mokou, on the other hand, slouched in her chair with a surly expression on her face, ignored by and ignoring everyone not at her table. The woman's ankle-length smoke-gray hair was studded with ribbons and paper charms, as were her baggy red pants. The shirt she wore under her suspenders might have been white at one time, but was smudged and discolored and stank of ash and days without soap. She kept glancing suspiciously at the girl sitting next to her.

"I accepted Princess Kotohime's invitation just the same as you," chided Kaguya with a serene smile. "And I am sure she is eager to explain this summons."

"Yes, it _is_ rather exciting," Kotohime agreed, bouncing up and down in her seat slightly before calming herself. She folded her hands on the table, regarding her guests like a professional conducting a job interview instead of a hyperactive woman with an interesting take on reality. "I was thinking - meditating, really - the other day, and decided that it's really quite ludicrous for Gensokyo to have only a single police officer to protect it."

"I thought you were a princess," interrupted Mokou.

"As well as a police officer," Kotohime explained. "And on some occasions I am forced to go undercover as a simple policewoman, or on others to disguise myself as a mere princess. But back to the topic at hand - well, I'm sure you can guess my proposition! How would you two like to join the force?"

There was an uncomfortable silence in which neither guest enthusiastically accepted her offer.

"Why us, in particular?" inquired Kaguya politely.

"Because we're all princesses, of course!" answered Kotohime with a huge smile.

"I'm not," Mokou said flatly.

"Oh? That's a shame..." Kotohime drummed her fingers on the slightly-sticky table. "An all-princess police force would be an unstoppable, gilded hammer of justice..." She looked up at Mokou again. "But you're at least a noblewoman, right? Fujiwara clan and all that."

The gray-haired girl snorted derisively. "I wouldn't say _noble_. And technically, yeah, I'm a Fujiwara, but I'm pretty sure I've been written off the family tree. It's been thirteen hundred years, after all," she added, staring moodily at a place centuries away.

The lull in the conversation was interrupted when a waitress brought the three glasses Kotohime had ordered. The red-haired princess nodded at the servant and immediately chugged down her drink. Then, before her guests could move, she sent the contents of a second cup down after the first.

"Mmmm..." Kotohime picked up the third glass, sloshing the amber liquid around a bit, and smacked her lips. "Good stuff. Anyway, as rookies you'll be paired with an older, more experienced officer, namely whichever of you I swear in first. You'll get to go on patrols until you learn your way around town and meet the locals, while I can get caught up on the paperwork and my sleep. Now I don't have any official uniforms or badges, so if anyone asks, you're undercover. And when there's a problem, we'll all rush in and beat seven kinds of hell out of it with our suspiciously phallic truncheons of office." She drained the third glass in a single gulp. "Sound good?"

Kaguya just stared at the three empty cups. "I'll be back in a moment," she said, gracefully rising from her seat and heading towards the bartender.

Mokou watched her leave, her eyes narrowed, before turning back to Kotohime. "To answer your question: no. There's no way in hell I'm 'partnering' with _her_. The only reason I'm not killing her right now is because I don't wanna burn this place down around us."

"Yes, yes, your feud," Kotohime said, waving a dismissive hand. "But that's why teaming up with her is the best idea ever! You get witty banter, sarcastic remarks, you can trade insults in the middle of a gunfight – or _danmaku_ fight, whatever. But then it gradually becomes clear that you're beginning to respect each other, even starting to like each other, and then you move on to sexual tension-"

Mokou was still sputtering when Kaguya returned moments later with a pair of beers. She took Kaguya's offered glass with a grunt of thanks and quickly drained it to calm herself.

"-leave it up to you to decide who's the jaded cop and who's the young, wise-cracking firebrand," Kotohime went on, waving her hands animatedly. "And it's okay if you cause some collateral damage, because then I get to yell at you for being renegade cops who don't play by the rules. Though I can't say 'the mayor's riding my ass on this one!' because technically _I'm_ the highest civil authority-"

"Your pardon, but what are those rules, anyway?" Kaguya interrupted as she slid back into her seat. At Kotohime's confused look, she added "I'm referring to Gensokyo's legal code. I would assume it's all written down somewhere, yes? As a Lunarian, I would need to familiarize myself with the local laws before attempting to enforce them."

"Oh, of course!" Kotohime said brightly. After several seconds passed without her producing such a book, she shifted in her seat, a guilty look on her face. "Well, I don't own a copy myself. You're right, though, they're probably written down _somewhere_... maybe town hall? Do we even _have_ a town hall?" She tapped her chin and frowned with the effort of recollection, then shrugged. "Anyway, it's not like I need to know what the laws are to uphold them. You know what they say, crime is like pornography – you know it when you see it."

Kaguya and Mokou traded a glance that said _We're a pair of immortals that kill each other for fun, and yet neither of us is the craziest person at this table_.

"What about those 'Incident' solvers," said Kaguya after taking a sip from her drink. "They're already doing unofficial police work, so why not make them part of the, ah, 'force?'"

"They have their uses," Kotohime grudgingly admitted. "But the witch is more concerned with breaking the law than upholding it, and the miko... well, she's a loose cannon, and not the good kind. I've _tried_ to be a moderating influence on her, disciplining her when necessary, but I'm saddened to say it hasn't worked. That's why I'm looking for recruits with the character to succeed as policewomen, and who better than those with royal blood?"

Mokou made a dismissive noise somewhere between a grunt and a hiccup. Kaguya glanced at her rival, then back at their host.

"It's an... intriguing idea," the Lunarian said carefully. "Though I must point out that things have been relatively quiet, as of late."

"The calm before the storm," said Kotohime ominously. "Mark my words, this is just the lull before the next batch of six to eight troublemakers shows up for the next Incident. That's why we need a bulwark of princesses – and Mokou – to stand, armed and armored with justice, against the tide of shenanigans and comically violent misunderstandings, to... is something wrong with her?"

Mokou, whose skin had turned an unnatural shade of green, abruptly collapsed face-first onto the tabletop, making the empty glasses jump. An alarmed murmuring rose from the tavern's other occupants as she gurgled and foamed at the mouth, twitching slightly.

"It is all right, everyone," Kaguya said, rising to her feet and holding her hands up in a calming gesture. "The food and drink are perfectly safe; I merely poisoned her cup."

This, strangely, did little to help.

Kotohime ignored the growing hubbub and frowned in contemplation as she stared at the stricken woman. "I was about to say, it sure was surprising for her to chug down something from her blood nemesis like that. So, is she dead?" She didn't wait for an answer, and gave Mokou a good poke in the shoulder. "Yep, looks like it. Guess we don't need to send for that nurse of yours after all. Now where's that cat with the wheelbarrow?"

"She'll be fine in a half-hour," Kaguya replied.

"Oh, right, Hourai immortal." The other princess furrowed her brow. "So is it technically murder if the victim can recover from it?"

"I'm sure you'll figure something out," Kaguya said easily, still standing and looking down on her rival's corpse (for the moment) with satisfaction. "As for your offer: I am intrigued, and shall consider it, but I am not sure I can live up to your expectations."

"Yeah, this might not work out after all if you two will be killing each other while on duty," Kotohime concluded glumly. She gave Mokou another half-hearted poke. "Well, if you don't want to be a cop, we could go into the detective business," she offered. "'Two Princesses Detective Agency,' eh? Trench coats, nice hats, dreary rain, talk to ourselves a lot. Investigate crimes like this one, figure out how the victim died."

"She died because I poisoned her."

"And like, use forensical sciency stuff to deduce the poison used."

"I'll have to ask Eirin, but I can give you an answer by tomorrow." Kaguya bowed politely. "Thank you for your invitation."

"Yeah, thanks," Kotohime murmured without looking up. She didn't notice the other princess taking her leave, and was instead fixated on the charms on Mokou's legs and hair. Reasoning that there wasn't any law about stealing from dead people, Kotohime yanked one of the slips of paper from Mokou's hair, pocketed it, left some change on the table, and whistling cheerfully, exited the tavern.

She stepped outside, scarcely noticing the horrified cries of the bar's owner, who had finally emerged from the kitchen to see what was making his customers quit the place. Kotohime reached into a voluminous sleeve and pulled out a notebook and pencil, scratching "Police Princesses" off her list of ideas. It had been a long shot, she admitted, but it would have been awesome if it had worked.

That left her with... hmm, she'd written "Red-Headed League," but couldn't recall what she'd meant by it. A club? Some sort of sports team?_ That_ could be fun. They could challenge the Green-Headed League to a tournament! Once they'd figured out what they were competing in, anyway. And who the Green-Headed League was.

Kotohime snapped her notebook shut with a decisive nod. So, redheads. She set off for the Scarlet Devil Mansion, trying to think of other potential recruits beyond the manor's Chinese gatekeeper. That slacker shinigami, assuming Kotohime felt up for a trip to the Sanzu.. maybe Marisa, on a technicality...

-x-

* * *

><p><strong><em>Author's notes:<em>**

_This isn't the first Kotohime story I worked on, but it was the catalyst to get this fic started. There was a conversation on the TV Tropes forums one day,_ _reacting to the latest chapter of TakerFoxx's _Imperfect Metamorphosis: Rhapsody of Subconscious Desir_e, and it led to the idea of Mokou and Kaguya starring in a buddy-cop movie with Kotohime as the chief. The result was this short story which, being too large for a forum post, prompted me to make an account on this site to share it. So here it is.  
><em>

_I envision this 'fic as more of a collection of self-contained Kotohime stories than a single narrative. This is not to say that there won't be continuity, but I intend for every chapter to stand on its own, which is why I'm labeling it as "Complete" despite intending to add more chapters in the future._

_Standard fanfic warning time: I own nothing, this is intended solely for entertainment purposes, etcetera and so forth, all glory to ZUN. Also note that my personal fanon may not be the same as yours, so forgive me if I get characterizations or facts "wrong." _

_Thanks for reading!  
><em>


	2. Kotohime and the Tool Shed Incident

**_Kotohime and the Exploded Tool-Shed Incident_**

Hayoto grumbled as he bent to pick up the scattered pieces of debris littering his back yard. Or at least he tried to - the splintery chunks of wood tended to crumble into ash around his fingers, which did nothing to improve his mood. Of all the things to happen to him, this was undoubtedly the weirdest and-

"I came as soon as I heard!" gasped a sudden voice.

The farmer turned to behold a red-haired woman skidding to a stop next to him, her bright purple kimono rumpled from her haste, a worryingly eager expression on her face.

Hayoto's brow furrowed with confusion. "I'm sorry?"

"The Incident," she explained, flapping a heavy-sleeved arm at the blackened patch of ground near the treeline. Her eyes shone with anticipation, which was certainly made the more unsettling by her red irises. It gave the impression that she could pounce at any moment.

"Incident? W-what Incident? Do you mean the shed?"

"Of course!"

"But it happened yesterday," Hayoto protested. The woman ignored this and strode over to examine the site.

"Start from the beginning," she ordered. "What happened?"

"Well, like I said, it was yesterday," Hayoto began, surprised with himself for going along. "It was late aftern… actually just about evening, the sun was going down. We were getting ready for supper. But then there was a _kaboom_ and a flash of light. And when I went out back to check, my shed was gone," he finished.

The woman nodded and crouched next to the scorched earth of the crime scene, running her fingers through the dirt and ash. "What was in it?" she asked.

Hayoto shrugged. "Nothin' much. Mostly used that one to store firewood, and we went through most of the pile over the winter, so it was no big loss. And it could've been worse, I guess. At least it didn't hit the fields. Gave everyone quite the fright, though." He scratched at his thin mustache distractedly.

But the woman wasn't really listening, instead scrutinizing the ash. She poked a fingertip in it and brought it up for a sniff. "No smell of saltpeter, no debris from a bomb or missile… this was obviously a magical attack. But who would want to strike at a humble farmer's tool-shed?"

"Uh, I wasn't keeping any tools in it," Hayoto supplied, "and everything's been worked out, I mean Miss Kirisame was over within the hour to apologize and pay for-"

"Do you have any enemies?" the woman asked.

Hayoto blinked. "I-I don't think so," he stuttered. "I mean, me and Ryota – he's the miller – well, we never got along, but-"

"A miller wouldn't be flinging magic like that around," the woman finished for him, nodding sagely. "At least not fire magic, which this obviously was. Everyone knows millers prefer more subtle, gradual spellwork to grind away their enemies, if you will pardon the pun."

"Uh... yeah?"

"So a random attack? Or was this a message? A message from a deadly new foe eager to display her power and disdain for authority?" The woman drew herself up with a determined look in her eyes. "One way or the other, I'm getting to the bottom of this."

"But miss," Hayoto pleaded, "I got compensated for it and - Shichiro and Yori are on their way over and we'll have the new shed up before the day's out - it's _already been settled-_"

"Thank you for your time, citizen," the woman said brusquely. And with that she began marching away from the slack-jawed farmer.

"Who are you, anyway?" he finally asked.

The woman spun on her heels, making her long red ponytail whip around her as she flashed him a confident smile. "I am Kotohime, princess of Gensokyo. But fear not, my good subject, for I am here in my role as police officer to see that justice is served and this Incident resolved."

Hayoto was speechless, and could do nothing more than watch her walk away. After she had rounded the corner of his house and disappeared out of sight, the farmer looked around, blinking as if coming out of a daze, trying to find anyone who could assure him that he hadn't hallucinated the whole thing.

-x-

* * *

><p>-1-<p>

"And here you are. Watch the edges, dearie, they're sharp," warned the kindly old shopkeeper as she handed over the bundle of paper.

Keine noted that Mrs. Hasegawa gave that warning every single time the schoolteacher visited her store, and that not once had Keine actually cut herself on the parchment. But she smiled and said thanks all the same. Mrs. Hasegawa was a nice old lady, shrunken and wrinkled like an overripe apple, but always smiling.

"Oh, full moon coming up already?" the shopkeep added as Keine opened the door to leave.

Keine's eyes widened and she shifted the load so she had a free hand to pat her hair above her temples. "Ah, yes it is, two days from now" she said, flustered. She couldn't _feel _her horns yet, and if her tail had-

"I thought so," Mrs. Hasegawa chuckled. "Your hair loses its blue tinge and picks up just a hint of green. Oh, I'm so jealous; mine just goes from gray to white, one-way!"

They shared a laugh and Keine relaxed, saying one last goodbye before finally slipping outside with her basket of school supplies. It was the weekend, so the village wasn't as busy as usual, and if she wasn't sidetracked by any more conversations with friends she could drop this stuff off and be home for a nice pre-emptive nap before the whole were-hakutaku thing started in earnest-

"Keine Kamishirasawa?"

The schoolteacher started at the voice, and turned to see a red-haired woman in a formal purple kimono standing uncomfortably close. "Oh, Miss Kotohime. Excuse me, _Princess_ Kotohime."

"Officer Kotohime, for the moment," Kotohime corrected absently. "Here on a different type of official business. Let's walk," she said, flapping a huge sleeve down the street in the opposite direction from the school.

Keine froze for a moment, unsure of what to do, but soon found herself strolling down the road next to the self-proclaimed princess. There was something about Kotohime, Keine reflected, that warped the world into going along with whatever mission or obsession she was focused on at the moment. It was probably a powerful innate ability, a magical gift that could be used for great good or great evil, but in Kotohime's case was used for great weirdness.

Other pedestrians gave them a wide berth, a few of them recognizing and nodding or smiling at Keine. Reactions to Kotohime were more varied – some townspeople traded smiles with the princess, while others pointedly ignored her, or wrinkled their faces with distaste at the sight of her. Then a young man leading a group of his friends stopped to give Kotohime a formal bow, prostrating himself in the street before his sovereign. A surprised Kotohime blinked before beaming and bidding her loyal subject to rise. She didn't notice how the pack of men howled with laughter after they moved past.

While Kotohime seemed content to just go for a walk, Keine was wondering what this was all about. After giving her companion a chance to talk, Keine took a breath and asked "So-"

"Heard anything about a farmer named Hayoto?" the princess/police officer immediately interrupted.

The schoolteacher thought for a moment, deliberately shortening her stride so she'd have less distance to backtrack when she was finally able to get on with her errands. "Nothing about the man himself," she answered, "but his son Michi has been trying to sleep in class, and I had to send another note home with him this week. But other than that-"

"Their house was attacked," said Kotohime somberly. "There's nothing but a scorched crater in their yard, debris everywhere… Hayoto was nearly out of his mind with grief."

Keine stopped in her tracks, eyes wide from shock. "No," she breathed. "Are they alright?"

"Physically, they're fine," Kotohime responded with a slow shake of her head. "But the emotional scars… those may never heal."

"Who would do such a thing?"

"Who indeed?" the princess asked ominously. "It was obviously a magical attack, and the culprit remains at large. Someone with a firm grasp of fire magic."

Keine's silvery hair swirled around her as she glared at the other woman. "If you're insinuating that Mokou is to blame for this, you're wrong. She'd never…" Keine trailed off. When Fujiwara no Mokou and her nemesis Kaguya Houraisan were in the grips of a magical duel, collateral damage was a very real possibility. That forest fire, for example… but Keine doubted Mokou would ever blow up someone's house _maliciously_.

Probably.

Certainly not unless Kaguya was in it, anyway.

"Perhaps you have some information that could help with the investigation?" Kotohime suggested.

"Mokou wouldn't do such a thing," Keine repeated stubbornly. "And – when was this attack, anyway?"

"Yesterday, around sundown."

"Well, yesterday afternoon she was with me, helping clean up the school. Then we picked up dinner. She wasn't near Hayoto's place."

"And you have plenty of witnesses to verify this?" Kotohime asked.

"Yes, you can ask Mystia Loreli – she runs the grilled lamprey stand-"

"She's a good cook for a youkai," the princess commented.

"-or the students who left late, or-"

"And where is Miss Fujiwara now?"

Keine gave a slight smile, though it didn't reach her eyes. "I'd assume the bamboo forest. You'll have a hard time finding her, I imagine."

"Oh?" Kotohime looked a little disappointed. "She's not in Eientei, prowling after the nemesis she can't imagine life without, even while the hatred in her breast begins to blossom into a different kind of obsession?"

The schoolteacher gave her a look like Kotohime had sprouted a second head. "Not to my knowledge, no," Keine finally managed, sounding dazed.

Kotohime frowned. "Oh. Well, sounds like she's got a decent alibi, at least." She produced a notebook from somewhere and began scribbling into it with a pencil. "So that's one suspect off the list – has this student, Michi, been acting odd recently?" she asked, looking up at Keine again.

The schoolteacher gave her another uncertain look. "How do you mean?"

"Has he displayed hitherto unseen magical or psionic abilities such as psychokinesis or pyrokinesis?" At Keine's blank stare, she clarified "Has he been movin' stuff or settin' fires with his mind?"

"No!"

"Two suspects down; I'm on a roll," Kotohime chuckled to herself while consulting her notes. Then she looked up, again serious. "How about cats? Have you seen any cats acting strangely lately? This is _very important_."

"Stranger than usual, you mean?" asked Keine, quite confused. "The stray near my house attacked my hat the other night, but that was about it."

Kotohime nodded, though again, Keine thought she looked a little disappointed. "Thank you for your time, you've been most helpful in resolving this Incident." She snapped her notebook shut with a definitive little sound.

"Think nothing of it," Keine mumbled. She glanced hopefully in the direction of the Hakurei Shrine. "Ah, Reimu and Marisa haven't gotten involved yet, have they? This sounds like their sort of thing."

"Oh, it remains to be seen just what role they've played in this." Kotohime smiled, which filled Keine with a strange foreboding. "But I'm going to find out."

-x-

* * *

><p>-2-<p>

Marisa Kirisame grumbled to herself as she tried to bring some semblance of order to her work space, the extension of her cottage she proudly referred to as her laboratory. It resembled a disaster area, with piles of rubbish, half-finished or broken projects, and scattered belongings lying in heaps on the floor… and then last night her lab had exploded.

The witch brushed strands of golden hair out of her eyes, her brow wrinkled with uncharacteristic concern as she surveyed the damage and how little a dint she'd put in it. It was a good thing she'd been careful enough to put on that heavy leather apron and metal helmet, Marisa reflected, or else the accident could have done more than blow her off her feet. But it had all been going so well! She'd progressed past potions and magical paste into exciting new territory – what she called arcane plasma, a mystically-energized, high-energy gas that behaved like a liquid. It was just a _teensie_ bit unstable at the moment, but that's what she'd been doing last night, experimenting with the proportions so there'd be less risk of blowing herself up.

But then she'd… well, blown herself up. Or to be more accurate, knocked herself flat on her ass and sent a flask of magical energies rocketing through the roof and subjecting the surrounding area to a light bombardment. Not to mention scorching her signature pointy hat on its way out.

At least no one (else) had been hurt, and the fires had been easy to put out. And while Lot #1 had decided to pay a surprise visit to the Hakurei Shrine, Lot #2 had miraculously survived the explosion unscathed and had yet to misbehave on her. Marisa plucked the vial of shimmering purple sorta-liquid from the splintered remains of her countertop and gently set it down on top of her personal forge. Once she got the place cleaned up she could start fiddling with the mixture again…

She snorted to herself. Maybe she ought to get started now while there was already a hole in the ceiling, so she wouldn't have to clean up twice if things went wrong. She sighed as she picked up a notebook, noticed that it was charred beyond recognition, and carelessly tossed it over her shoulder-

"Ow!"

The magician whirled around, barely suppressing her instinct to lash out with magic. "What the hell are…" she trailed off as she recognized who was sitting on the floor, rubbing a bump on her head. "I mean," Marisa said as she smoothly switched gears, plastering a winsome smile on her face and rising to curtsy, "good morning, your majesty."

"G'morning," Kotohime replied grumpily, getting to her feet and checking to see if she was bleeding. "Do I get to chuck a book at you now?"

"Sorry 'bout that, but I wasn't expecting visitors, your grace" said Marisa. "They usually knock first."

"Oh, I needed to practice breaking and entering, to better understand the criminal mind and therefore combat it," said Kotohime. "Though it looks like I'm not the only one," she added with a meaningful nod at the scorched hole in the lab's ceiling.

"Just a minor magical accident," the magician replied, while noting the irony in having her home burglarized. "No injuries, negligible property damage, and everything's all taken care of. But enough about me," she said, leaning back against a wall and folding her arms. "What brings you to my humble cottage, princess?"

"A consultation, actually," Kotohime said as she flopped down on a pile of laundry and crumpled notes like it was a beanbag chair. "I'm investigating who's behind a recent magical attack."

"An attack, huh?" Marisa repeated, absently flicking the braid trailing down the front of her left shoulder. "Gensokyo has youkai and fairies and deities and at least two other magicians. And one obnoxiously overpowered shrine maiden," she added with a sniff. "So you're gonna have to narrow it down a bit, y'know?"

Kotohime folded her hands behind her head, annoying Marisa with how comfortable the uninvited princess was making herself. "What kind of magic would you need to blow up a building?"

"Why, you got something planned?" Marisa asked with a smirk, but she was starting to get interested in spite of herself. "What kind of building?" she asked. "How sturdy a structure we talking about – brick, wood, what?"

"Simple wood, not reinforced at all."

"Not much then," the magician said. "I mean, something like the mishap I had yesterday could do that."

Kotohime nodded to herself, then reached into a drooping sleeve and produced a slim notepad she flipped open, her pencil up and waiting. "So you're saying any hedge wizard or even a weak youkai could-"

"Hey, don't be underestimating me, your highness" the witch retorted. "When Marisa Kirisame has a magical accident, it's not gonna be some two-bit firework. I get the big explosions, whether I want them or not!" Her pride satisfied, Marisa settled down and went back to conjecturing. "And there's more to it than that, anyway. Like how complete a demolition are you wanting? Even a fairy could tear down a shack if you gave it enough time, while ol' Yuuka could Spark it down in half a second."

"I was thinking along the lines of a scorch mark with just a bit of debris and ash," Kotohime clarified. "As for the time frame: nigh-instantaneous. So, who do you think could pull something like that off?"

Marisa scratched her chin and stared up at her scorched and holey ceiling, her golden eyes thoughtful. "Well, like I said, Yuuka. Patchy – uh, Patchouli Knowledge, up at the Scarlet Devil Mansion. The Scarlets. That Tenshi brat. That hell-raven – you might want to check the radiation level," she joked, but Kotohime just nodded and made a note. "Alice. Reimu. Me, I guess-"

"But you've been staying at home, having some mishaps," Kotohime interrupted. "Unless, of course, you trashed your house just to give yourself an alibi."

"I assure you, I take pride in keeping my home as clean and neat as possible," Marisa answered, inwardly grinning as she imagined a certain yama screaming in frustration. "And on that note, I should probably be getting back to my housework, my liege."

"Then I'll leave you to it," Kotohime said as she flipped her notebook shut with a decisive little slam and eased herself upright. "Thank you for your time, you've been most helpful."

"I live to serve, most exalted one," said Marisa as she bowed. "I trust that my advice won't be used for anything sinister?" she asked while leading her guest through the debris fields and heaps of miscellaneous stuff between the lab and the front door.

Kotohime laughed. "Oh of course not. I'm doing detective work, not going on a rampage."

"In my experience, the two can be remarkably similar," Marisa noted. "So is this going to end with Reimu in jail again?"

"It's too early in the investigation to say with any certainty," Kotohime replied. "But my gut says yes."

"You should follow your gut then," Marisa said, trying unsuccessfully to hide her smirk. "Be sure to question Reimu right away. Criminal types like her need a close eye on them."

"Oh, rest assured, I will be visiting the Hakurei shrine maiden without delay," answered Kotohime. "As Gensokyo's self-appointed supernatural authority, it is her lapse in vigilance that has allowed this catastrophe to happen. And as Gensokyo's civil authority, it is _my_ duty to demand answers why."

When Marisa shut the door behind her uninvited guest after one last round of formalities, she had to take a moment to slump against it and cackle, regretting the chores that kept her from flying off to watch the chaos of another Kotohime "investigation." She returned to her wrecked lab with a light heart, went to pick up the second batch of her elixir-

And saw the empty spot on the top of her forge.

"Fffffff-"

-x-

* * *

><p>-3-<p>

Kotohime swirled the vial she'd sto- _confiscated_ from Marisa's house, admiring how the motion made little golden sparks arc within the murky purple substance, as though she were holding a bottled thunderstorm. It had such a pleasing glow to it that she couldn't _not_ swipe it. Not that she'd use it for nefarious purposes! No, this was the ideal nightlight. And anyway, if she'd left it behind, Marisa would have just used it to cause trouble. The witch had been rambling on about some magical accident, right? Kotohime hadn't been paying much attention, since it was irrelevant to her case.

Oh yeah, the case! Kotohime flipped open her notebook and scribbled in it as she continued along the rough dirt path leading out of the forest to the human village. So not Mokou, not Marisa… could she just scratch off all the suspects whose names started with M? Who else would that be? That tengu wolf guard – how exactly did that work, anyway, being a bird person _and_ a wolf person? Medicine Melancholy, of course, especially since she threw poisons instead of fire. The captain – fancy a drowned ghost using fire magic, eh? Mystia the night sparrow turned cook…

Kotohime's stomach gurgled at the memory of countless tasty dinners. She stopped and looked to the eastern mountains, where the Hakurei Shrine was tucked away on Gensokyo's border, but instead she remained on the path leading to the village, or more specifically towards a tavern she frequented for lunch. She'd get to Reimu eventually, but first she had to follow her gut.

-x-

* * *

><p>-4-<p>

The birds were chirping, a gentle breeze was sighing through the trees, and the sun was shining down to take the edge off the early spring coolness. It was looking to be another glorious afternoon in Gensokyo. But rather than relaxing and enjoying it, Reimu Hakurei was kneeling in the courtyard in front of the shrine she was inextricably bound to, trying to scrub a scorch mark off the flagstones. Much like she seemed stuck cleaning up after troublemakers and irresponsible maniacs who passed themselves off as magicians and-

A shadow fell over the star-shaped patch of charred rock Reimu was working furiously to clean, and the shrine maiden just stopped, fuming. "I could work much better if you weren't blocking the light!" she said by way of greeting, without so much as glancing up at her visitor.

"Why are so few people ever pleased to see me?" mused a woman's voice. "It's probably due to my status as a police officer-"

Reimu groaned and wearily pushed herself to her feet, glaring at the overdressed woman standing next to her.

"-which isolates me from society even as I strive to protect it. It's a terrible burden, but one I bear proudly to better protect my subjects," Kotohime concluded, a finger against her chin as she struck an introspective pose.

"You're _not_ a police officer. And you're _not _a princess!" Reimu insisted. "And if you try to throw me in jail again I'll throw everything I've got-"

"Do you have any tea?" interrupted Kotohime.

Reimu glowered at the older woman, her dark red eyes flashing beneath brown bangs. "Why would I give you tea?"

"It's just that I've spent the last half hour hiking up the path to get here, on a full stomach, so I'm quite thirsty."

"Can't you fly?" asked Reimu with a roll of her eyes. Being reminded of food after skipping lunch was doing nothing to improve her mood. "And I don't have any tea, because I didn't make any, because I've spent all morning trying to clean up Marisa's stupid mess," she added, flapping a hand at the scorched stones. She dropped back to her knees, reached for the washrag in her bucket, accidentally dunked her detached white sleeve in the soapy water, and growled in exasperation. "And I won't get finished anytime soon if I have you around to pester me, so go away!" she ordered.

After half a minute of working in silence, Reimu finally lifted her gaze to find herself alone again. She stopped and looked around the courtyard, but there was no sign of Kotohime. Suppressing a twinge of guilt for her cold welcome, she bent over and got back to scrubbing.

A few minutes later, she stopped to glare at the stain that was still refusing to come out. Maybe if-

"To answer your question, I prefer to fly only during long trips."

Reimu nearly jumped out of her skin. "What did-" she began, but then she saw that Kotohime was stepping out of the Hakurei Shrine's front door, carrying a tray laden with porcelain cups and a teapot.

"Although it's conventional for a princess to do as little work as possible," Kotohime continued, "I find the exercise invigorating. After all, not many of us have the special power to dodge calories from sweets," she added with a sleepy smile. "Shall we go indoors, or sit on the porch, in the shade?"

-x-

* * *

><p>-5-<p>

"Are you sure you used my blend to make this?" asked Reimu, looking down at her half-finished cup and resolving to drink more slowly. She hadn't realized she'd been so thirsty.

"Yep," replied Kotohime.

"It tastes kind of fruity though."

"Oh, well," the princess said, kicking her legs slightly as they dangled over the edge of the porch. "I like to add a little chunk of cherry to my tea, for a bit of sweetness that's healthier than dumping in sugar."

Reimu gaze the liquid a suspicious look. "But I'm out of cherries."

"Luckily I keep a fresh supply on my person at all times," Kotohime explained, "along with a selection of other snacks." She reached into her sleeve and withdrew a paper bag, then fished something out of it. "Cookie?" she offered.

"Yes please," said Reimu politely, before biting into it with hungry enthusiasm. The snack was a pleasant surprise, not stale like she had been expecting, and tasted of lemon. "These are good."

"Why thank you. Homemade, you know. A vital part of the all-purpose food kit I keep on my person in case I am ever teleported against my will into a hostile land." Kotohime noticed the shrine maiden's gaze lingering on the bag, and wordlessly handed it over.

"Do you actually expect that to happen?" asked Reimu between bites.

"While we have yet to meet in person – though I do believe we have done battle on the astral plane on at least seven occasions – I am well aware that the Youkai of Boundaries could send me into the middle of the Gobi Desert with but a thought," Kotohime explained.

Reimu tried to pace herself now that she was on the last cookie. "But if that happens you'll be fine, since you carry food and water on you."

"Nah, just food."

The shrine maiden blinked. "Isn't water more important, though?"

"Oh, Earth is like seventy percent water," said Kotohime with a careless wave of her hand.

Reimu decided not to state the obvious. "You know, Marisa was here about an hour ago, looking for you," she said instead. "She sounded pretty mad. Something about you stealing something from her?"

"A policewoman does not go around _stealing_ items," Kotohime replied coldly.

Reimu shrugged. "Whatever. I told her you weren't around, and she yelled a bit and flew off again."

"She always was a bit unstable," mused the princess. "I think it's all the magical experimenting she does. All those mushrooms. If she ever becomes a full youkai, I bet she'll start feeding on humans, and then I'll have to put her down."

"No, you won't," Reimu corrected firmly. "If Marisa ever acts out _I'm_ the one who deals with her, understand?"

Kotohime glanced sideways, saw the shrine maiden's narrowed eyes and the determined set to her jaw, then shrugged carelessly. "I suppose that is your prerogative."

There was a chilly silence for a moment, defused when Reimu upended the cookie bag to catch the last crumbs in her mouth. "Those were _really_ good," she declared while brushing the ones she'd missed off her red and white dress. "So what's the occasion for this visit? You come by, sneak into my home, make tea…"

"Something about magic," Kotohime murmured, tapping her temple while she concentrated. "Ah, that's right! There was a magical attack on a farmer's home. I was wondering what you'd heard about it."

"News to me," Reimu shrugged.

"Oh? I was hoping you might have some ideas of who's responsible, to aid the authorities in their pursuit of justice."

"What, you don't have any leads of your own?"

The policewoman's eyes narrowed. "Of course I do, and I thought _you'd_ be eager to help and make up for the lapse of vigilance that allowed the attack to happen."

"Since when was I in charge of guarding farmers' houses?" Reimu retorted. "Nobody's shown up to hire me, so it's not my problem. And didn't _you_ have a lapse of vigilance too, then?"

Kotohime scowled at her for a moment, then shrugged. "Well, there's no use arguing over who has jurisdiction here," she said, dismissing the spat like it had never happened. "Anyway: any unusual youkai behavior that you know of?"

"As far as I know all the youkai have been well-behaved," Reimu replied with a shrug of her own. "Or at least as well-behaved as they usually are. The only commotion I've heard about was when Marisa's house exploded and rained fireballs on my front yard. And some other people's property, I guess."

"No, I'm not worried about that," Kotohime replied. She leaned forward, resting her chin in her hand as she gazed at the surrounding mountains. "This was a brazen, malicious attack, and Miss Kirisame assured me that only the most powerful of youkai or magicians could have been responsible for it. I'm not sure _why_ they'd pick on a humble farmer, unless this is an attempt to lure me into a trap. But I'm less concerned with motive than who's responsible."

"I think you're being insane again," Reimu said flatly. "I know Incidents, and this doesn't feel like an Incident."

"Perhaps a woman _does_ have to be insane to seek justice in a world where inhuman entities wield powers beyond mortal comprehension, leaving simple folk cowering helplessly in their homes, waiting for death," mused Kotohime.

"Did you just call me inhuman?"

"Inhuman entities and Reimu, then."

"That's better."

The princess drummed her fingers on her knee. "So Gensokyo's premier Incident-resolver has heard nothing of this latest attack, and has no sense that there's even an Incident going on at all," she summarized.

"Right," Reimu agreed, "which means-"

"That whoever is behind this is able to act undetected by your legendary intuition," Kotohime concluded.

The shrine maiden blinked. "Noooooo," she said slowly, "it means that you're overreacting and getting all worked up over nothing."

Kotohime's eyes narrowed. "Not _nothing_. His name was Hayoto. And I _will_ see justice for him and his family."

"It doesn't really matter what I say, does it?" Reimu asked herself. "Like you're in your own little world and you only hear what you want to."

"No, Reimu, I appreciate the offer," Kotohime answered, "but this is something I've got to take care of myself. It's a direct challenge to my authority." She sighed and gave the younger woman an uncharacteristically grim look. "And if I perish in this upcoming battle, it will fall upon you to lead Gensokyo in my stead," she said while placing a hand on Reimu's head, next to the shrine maiden's trademark red bow. "You're the closest thing I have to a daughter-"

"You _put me in a cell_," Reimu ground out.

"All parents must discipline wayward children at times," Kotohime said somberly. "I'm sure you'll make a fine queen someday."

Reimu shrugged off her hand. "It's not really worth mentioning, since as I said _you're not a princess_, but two months ago you 'officially' adopted the Scarlet Devil Mansion's gatekeeper as your heir because you had the same hair color."

Kotohime blinked in surprise. "I did?" Her forehead wrinkled in confusion. "No, I don't think so. I'm sure I'd remember doing something that important. And there would have been a grand celebration."

"I think there was a lot of beer involved," Reimu supplied. "Suika may have been there, too. And on that note, how many drinks did you have during lunch?"

"Bah, I've spent too much time talking about what I should be doing instead of going out and doing it," Kotohime declared as she pushed herself to her feet. "This villain won't catch herself." She froze, looking thoughtful. "Though that'd certainly be convenient: a self-apprehending criminal. I'll have to work on that once this case is closed."

"I'm not going to ask where you're going, because I don't really care."

"Thank you for the tea," Kotohime said while bowing.

Reimu nodded back. "Thanks for the cookies. You should go home and make some more instead of-"

"Can I have those?" asked Kotohime.

"What?"

"Those," the princess repeated, gesturing at the sodden tea bags in the empty cups on the tray beside her.

Reimu gave her a cock-eyed stare. "_Why?_"

"I have a magical experiment I want to run," Kotohime explained, reverently taking the soggy items and placing them in a bottle she extracted from her sleeve. "I'm investigating to see whether inanimate objects have sympathetic magical properties."

Reimu waited.

"It works similarly to how you curse a person in effigy – make the focus, a simulacrum of the target, and get something like a bit of hair to form the connection. Well, I'm wondering if I could use tea leaves to affect the tea plant," Kotohime explained.

"But why would you-"

"Or possibly form a connection with the person who drank the tea," the princess continued.

Reimu stared. "You really are an odd person."

"Only if my ideas don't go anywhere," Kotohime retorted with a challenging grin. "This may revolutionize forensic science by allowing us to track down criminals with a bit of dirt they left at the crime scene."

"Oh really? Do you have some suspicious dirt?"

"No, I…" Kotohime trailed off. "I forgot to take any samples," she breathed, wide-eyed. "I didn't even dust for fingerprints. The enemy has the power to affect my mind and muddle my thoughts!" she declared, trembling.

Reimu abruptly stood up, picked up the tray, and went back indoors towards her kitchen. "I'm serious!" she called as she left. "Go bake some more of those cookies. It'll work out better for everyone involved!"

Kotohime was already a red-purple dot vanishing into the sky.

-x-

* * *

><p>-6-<p>

The princess rocketed through the air, her hair and robes streaming behind her. Kotohime was at a loss of where to go next for the simple reason that _the enemy was inside her head, undermining her every move_. She tried to empty her mind and thwart the psychic attacker, but the same old image of an ice fairy playing the bagpipes wouldn't leave her thoughts.

She had two options – seek out the source of the psionic invasion and stop it, or develop a defensive measure. The first one was out since the enemy knew she what she was thinking and would therefore be forewarned, and as for defense, the old empty mind trick wasn't working. She needed aluminum foil or something to block the psychic radiation, but the only ones who'd have any would be the kappa and-

Kotohime suddenly noticed she was flying towards the Misty Lake, and realized that her subconscious might be providing her with an easy answer…

-x-

* * *

><p>-7-<p>

Not far from the lake's shore was a fairy grotto, a shady glen where the leaves formed a green ceiling over a shallow pool of sparkling clear water. And while there were many shady pools across Gensokyo, this was one of the few places unknown to humans and youkai alike, an isolated patch of undisturbed wilderness. For creatures born of nature, it was almost a holy place, a sanctuary. Fairies had a reputation for being found where there was excitement and loud noises, but that was because when they were in a more restful mood, they went to places where they couldn't be found at all.

There was a crowd of fairies in the clearing, a menagerie of tiny, winged forms, most of them no larger than a toddler, a few of the youngest with heights measuring in mere inches. Normally such an assembly would be buzzing with activity, but the only motions were slight movements of the fairies' insectoid wings. They were seated on tree branches or fallen logs or stones, spellbound, listening to the greatest of their kind.

There were as many types of fairy as there were aspects of nature, but only one Daiyousei, _the_ Great Fairy. She was seated on a mossy log in the grotto's center, her bare feet dangling beneath her sky blue dress to idly swirl through the pond's surface, a hefty book spread in her lap. She brushed her teal ponytail back into position at the side of her face, then held up the tome to show her audience the picture.

"After the demon queen destroyed her home, both she and the miko realized that they had gone too far," she explained in a clear, gentle voice. "Innocents had suffered from their battle, and their conflict had risked the very existence of Gensokyo itself." She paused. "Can anyone tell me why?"

A slender little golden-haired sylph, a comparative newborn still getting used to wearing clothes, raised her hand.

"Yes, Kohaku?"

The young fairy's face screwed up with concentration as she tried to think, something that did not come naturally to her kind. "Because the armpit miko is… uh… something about walls?"

"Very good!" praised Daiyousei with a beaming smile. "Yes, the Hakurei shrine maiden is responsible for maintaining the Great Boundary that separates Gensokyo from the outside world. If she were to die, that Boundary would be destroyed, and our home along with it."

A chorus of gasps and frightened murmurs rose from the fey assemblage.

"That's why everyone agreed to a plan to keep that from happening and prevent conflicts from hurting anyone," Daiyousei reassured them. "The shrine maiden came up with some rules where we could fight with danmaku to resolve disagreements, rather than with more dangerous weapons. This way nobody gets hurt, including the shrine maiden. And this also means that anyone in Gensokyo – even fairies like us – has a chance at beating her."

The rest of the fairies chattered excitedly at that prospect.

Daiyousei smiled at her charges, somewhere between siblings and children. "And that's why you should practice your danmaku as much as you can, so if you get in a fight, you can resolve it the way you're supposed to – and win."

But some of the fairies on the edges of the grotto weren't paying attention, and were craning their necks at the sounds coming from above.

"…Mieszko Tanglefoot, Leszek the White, Wladyslaw Spindleshanks, Konrad of… oh bugger, where was it?"

Daiyousei snapped her book shut, vanishing it into some extradimensional space. She made a quick gesture and the grotto exploded into motion, a cloud of fairies streaking every which way as they noiselessly scattered and hid. The great fairy frowned before propelling herself upwards with her golden-edged gossamer wings, nimbly weaving between branches to burst out the top of the forest canopy, where she found a woman in red and purple hovering nearby.

"Oh," said Daiyousei. "Hello, princess."

"Wladyslaw the Exile – good afternoon, Great One," replied Kotohime with an airborne curtsy. "Boleslaw the Curly. Have you seen Cirno lately?"

Daiyousei blinked, feeling like she was only getting half of a conversation. "Uh, why?"

"Mieszko the Old. I need her special skills. Kazimierz the Just."

"Unless she's off playing somewhere else, she's probably at her usual spot by the lake," the fairy replied. She was reluctant to ask, but… "Um, what are you saying?"

"Oh, I'm just under mental attack," the princess replied breezily.

"I _see_…" Daiyousei lied. "And this is something Cirno can help you with?"

"There are few in all Gensokyo better suited to deal with this danger," Kotohime assured her.

"Is she going to get in trouble?" Daiyousei pressed, folding her arms.

Kotohime opened her mouth, caught herself, and looked thoughtful for a moment. "No more than usual," she said in the end, before nodding at her friend and changing course towards the Misty Lake. "Boleslaw the Chaste, Leszek the Black, Henryk Probus…"

-x-

* * *

><p>-8-<p>

The strongest fairy in Gensokyo hummed a cheerful tune to herself as she played on the lakeshore. She lost track of the melody and had to start over a few times, and it could really have only been called a "tune" in a charitable sense, but she kept at it with limitless enthusiasm, the same way she treated every task she undertook.

An observer, at first glance, would have seen nothing more than a little girl wearing a deep blue dress with white triangles along the edges and a big blue bow on her head. But most little girls didn't have sky blue hair, or "wings" of frost hovering in the air just behind their shoulder blades. And while many children enjoyed building sand castles, few had the power to freeze handfuls of water and try to build ice palaces on the beach with them.

The architecture was strictly amateur, and the frozen castle was already melting in the spring sunlight, but the ice fairy was enjoying herself regardless. And then-

"Cirno! Just the lady I was looking for!"

The apparent little girl, who was in truth at least sixty, glanced up at Kotohime. "I'm not a lady, I'm a fairy!" she corrected the princess, before going back to work.

"You're many things, Cirno," Kotohime said with a sunny smile. "Which is why I hope you can help me."

"Mmmhmm?" The fairy's tongue stuck out of the corner of her mouth as she concentrated on placing a slippery chunk of ice to make a turret for her castle. "Doin' what?"

"Saving Gensokyo," the princess replied. She maneuvered around to hover just above the water's surface on the other side of the ice castle from Cirno, her arms folded and her expression suddenly serious. "I'm trying to solve an Incident, and if that wasn't enough something is trying to attack my mind."

Cirno's brow furrowed with the effort of recollection. "Like one of those eyeball ladies from the underground?"

"It's a possibility," Kotohime agreed. "Or maybe it's something worse. All I know is that without you nearby to help shield me, they'll be able to predict my every move, and be unbeatable."

The ice fairy glowered. "Are you calling me an idiot?" she demanded. "'cause sometimes people tease me and say if the eyeball ladies tried to look at my mind they wouldn't see anything." Her face turned red. "I'm tired of people sayin' stuff like that! I'm _not_ an idiot! They're the stupid ones!"

Kotohime's mouth hung open in shock for a moment. "No, that's – of course I don't think you're stupid, Cirno!" While the little fairy sniffled angrily, Kotohime landed and sank to her knees, gently putting her hands on Cirno's shoulders. "That's not why I think you can help me," she explained. "See, Cirno, you're special for a lot of reasons. You never give up, even when facing someone like Reimu or Marisa. You have boundless confidence and determination. And your sense of identity is unshakable. _That's_ what I'm after. When my attacker is trying to worm her way into my mind, I want her to slam against the impenetrable wall of your Cirno-ness."

Cirno didn't say anything, still looking down at the sand unhappily.

"In fact," Kotohime went on, reaching into a sleeve, "here."

The ice fairy reluctantly looked at what she was being offered. "What's that?"

"It's a badge," said Kotohime. "I'd like to make you my official deputy."

"Looks kinda familiar… what's it say?" Cirno asked as she peered at the design on the golden, star-shaped emblem.

"Can you read Chinese?"

"No."

"Then it says 'Deputy,'" Kotohime told her. "So, I've already said why I need you. Will you help me?"

Cirno looked thoughtful. "You forgot one thing," she informed the princess.

"Oh?"

Cirno beamed. "I'm the strongest!" She took the badge and pinned it to the front of her dress.

"'atta girl!" Kotohime tousled the fairy's hair, then scooped Cirno up with a squawk and placed the fairy on her shoulders. "Ahhh…" the princess sighed in relief. "Much better. Already I feel like my thoughts are my own again. That monster won't know what hit her! And now I'm refreshingly cool, too! An added bonus."

"Sometimes when it's summer I follow people around if they give me snacks," Cirno said happily as she got settled. "So who we gonna beat up?"

"Don't know yet," Kotohime admitted as she launched the two of them off the ground, Cirno seated on her shoulders in some strange variation of a piggyback ride. "You're right, it could be satori, but they're supposed to be all the way underground, so it might be someone new. So I'm thinking of doing what Reimu does."

Cirno grinned. "Go 'round attacking people until you find the one that did it?"

"And people call you _stupid_..."

-x-

* * *

><p>-9-<p>

"Heads up! Hostiles coming in at ten and two high, evading!"

"Wooooo!"

Cirno gripped the top of Kotohime's head to stay seated as the princess rolled and tumbled through the shower of danmaku. Then Kotohime pulled up sharply, rotating so that her passenger was closest to the enemy. "Hit 'em with an ice burst, Cirno!" she ordered.

"Yah!" the fairy shouted as she threw her hands up, unleashing a flurry of ice crystals from her outstretched arms. The nearest three or four foes flew right into the barrage and promptly fell out of the sky.

"Great shot!" Kotohime congratulated. She wasn't doing any shooting herself, just supporting Cirno on her shoulders like a gunner while the princess dodged and wove through the swarm of fairies that had materialized out of nowhere to impede their progress. Neither of them had wondered at that fact – if there was an Incident or something going on, clouds of obnoxious fairies just kind of happened, and you either blasted your way through them or stayed home.

The princess spotted shapes on the horizon. "Another wave coming up, stay frosty!"

It was a bad pun, but Cirno still grinned at it. This was fun! As danmaku went it was pretty unimpressive, really, but splitting up the flying and the shooting between two people was novel enough to be interesting. Cirno could easily fly and fight on her own, but having to adjust her aim to Kotohime's course changes and evasive moves was an entertaining challenge.

"Looks like five fairies in line formation," Kotohime warned, her kimono fluttering in the wind, her arms tight against her side, her hair streaming back around Cirno's legs as she flew. "Attack pattern delta, go now!"

"Uh… okay!" Cirno replied. She didn't know what the princess was expecting from her, so she just threw more ice crystals at the approaching fairies, which was pretty much the only attack she'd been using for the past few minutes. The lesser winged humanoids barely had time to loose some slow, easily-dodged spheres of light before they were hit by the freezing projectiles and tumbled into the forest canopy.

"Perfect, Cirno!" Kotohime praised.

"These fairies need more practice," said Cirno with a smug grin. "They aren't even a challenge for someone like me."

Kotohime twisted her head to look back at her passenger. "It doesn't bother you to be fighting your own kind?"

The ice fairy gave her an amused smirk. "'s not like you don't fight other humans, is it?"

"Ah, touché." The princess looked forward again just in time to see the wall of beautifully-colored magical bullets.

Both fairy and police officer yelped as Kotohime twisted on her side and somehow found a gap in the sheet of projectiles. But the next volley was close behind, a tight spiral aimed right at them-

Cirno shouted and flung her arms straight out from her sides. The incoming danmaku flashed a wintry silver before abruptly dropping towards the ground.

"Since when could you freeze danmaku?" Kotohime asked as she took advantage of the opening and nimbly slipped under the next barrage.

"You shoulda seen me during the Great Fairy War!" boasted her deputy. Then she spotted something and gestured ahead. "This the guy that's attacking you?" Cirno asked. Their enemy was finally visible, a fairy of slightly larger size than the ones they'd dispatched already, flying backwards and keeping pace with them while unleashing another pattern of danmaku.

"I dunno," replied Kotohime with surprising calm for the amount of heat they were taking. "She doesn't look all that dangerous. You can hardly imagine her bossing around minions."

"Maybe she's a small boss?" Cirno suggested. She froze another pattern of projectiles as casually as if she were shooing a fly.

Kotohime nodded. "Yeah, some sort of mini-boss. Let's get her out of the way." She tensed briefly before shooting forward.

The attacking fairy's eyes widened when it looked like the princess was trying out an airborne headbutt, but at the last minute Kotohime pulled up, inverted-

Cirno grinned and gave the other fairy's forehead the lightest of taps. There was a crunching sound, and then the now-frozen fairy took on the flight characteristics of a tortoise.

"Now you're just showing off!" laughed Kotohime. Cirno said nothing, but was emitting an almost palpable aura of smug satisfaction in much the same way she radiated cold.

They flew on in silence for a few seconds, peering about expectantly, but nothing else attacked them. "This isn't right," Kotohime declared as the seemingly-endless forest canopy continued to scroll below them. "Normally once you go through all the small fry you meet someone who had something to do with the Incident."

"Or someone who was playing in the lake," supplied Cirno grumpily.

"Hmm." Kotohime slowed them to a halt and hovered in place. "I'm still not seeing anybody."

"Maybe they can go unvisible," the fairy riding on her shoulders suggested.

Kotohime winced. "Aw, I don't wanna fight the kappa. She has missiles." Then, out of the corner of her eye, she saw it, a flash of color amongst the leaves and buds of the woodland. "A-_hah!_ As I suspected all along – our cunning foe is content to hide, sacrificing waves of minions to slow us down so she can escape!"

Cirno squinted at what the princess was pointing at. "Who's that?"

"A suspect."

"Doesn't _look_ like she's going anywhere..."

Kotohime's eyes lit up. "Just as I thought – she's holding her ground, waiting for us to engage her in honorable combat." She grinned. "Well, let's not disappoint her."

Cirno whooped as Kotohime launched them forward, rocketing down at a steep angle like a hawk diving at its prey.

"Alright, let's hit her with everything we've got!" Kotohime said excitedly. She clenched her fists and readied some magical attacks of her own, summoning fist-sized spheres of orange energy that orbited her waist even while complementing her hair and kimono. "Swift, overwhelming force. I don't like drawn-out battles."

Cirno ducked down low to reduce drag, folding her icy wings straight back behind her, a wide grin on her face. This was gonna be _awesome_-

-x-

* * *

><p>-10-<p>

"-is _wrong_ with you people? Who do you think you are, going around starting fights like that, that _bully_ of a shrine maiden?"

"Well-"

"Don't answer that, Cirno!"

Kotohime pushed herself off the ground and onto her feet with a grunt. "I think there's been a misunderstanding," she suggested as she tried to brush the dirt and leaves off her clothes.

Tokiko froze in the act of picking up one of her books. "No, I don't think so," the crested ibis youkai said icily, her red eyes glaring at them from beneath her disheveled hair, marked by alternating patterns of gray and pale purple. "I was sitting here in my reading place, minding my own business, when suddenly someone yelled 'Get her!' and I was barraged with fireballs-"

"And ice!" supplied Cirno from overhead. Her face was turning red from being stuck upside-down in a tangle of branches, but she seemed in good cheer.

"_Yes_, I noticed," snapped Tokiko. Her wings fluttered and shivered as she tried to knock the last patches of frost from her scarlet and purple feathers.

"You're strong!" the ice fairy went on.

"Because c-crap like this keeps happening to me!" Tokiko stammered back, flushing. "I'm not going to be pushed around anymore, you hear? I've been training," she said defiantly.

"Sometimes when I hang out by the mansion, Meiling lets me train with her," commented Cirno, still wrong side up. "She's taught me some nèijìng . She says I'm getting good at it!" she beamed.

The bird girl stared at Cirno. "I guess that explains that… kick, or whatever you were doing. But," she continued, turning on Kotohime, "what do _you_ have to say for yourself?"

"As I said, this was a misunderstanding," the policewoman said, calmly gathering her hair back into a ponytail. "I have been under psychic attack, and found an isolated youkai studying forbidden grimoires to be suspicious."

"Forbidden...? _These are just books!"_ Tokiko insisted.

"Oh? What kind of books?"

"I wanna see!" added Cirno, wiggling as she struggled to get free.

The ibis youkai blushed, again. "None of your business!"

Kotohime arched an eyebrow. "It's awfully hard to prove your innocence if you won't supply us with evidence," she commented.

"I shouldn't have to 'prove' my innocence at all!" Tokiko stuffed her books into a backpack and struggled into it, carefully situating the burden between her wings. "Humans!" she spat. "Think all youkai are monsters 'cause they supposedly go around attacking people. So what do you do about it? Go around randomly attacking them!"

"It's the cycle of senseless violence that keeps life in Gensokyo interesting," Kotohime agreed with a sage nod. "Sorry to trouble you, ma'am, you can go about your business."

"No, I _can't_, because now my reading spot is _ruined_ and I'm too angry to… _grrr!"_ Tokiko screwed up her face, near tears, and leapt into the sky, her dark dress fluttering. "I just wanted to reeeeeeeaaaaaad!"

Kotohime watched her go, a thoughtful expression on her face. "Interesting. She didn't respond to my mental probes, and I didn't detect any kind of psychic activity whatsoever. I guess she wasn't involved after all." She shrugged. "Oh well."

There was a crack of timber and a yelp, and Cirno thudded face-first onto the ground next to her.

"I'm okay!" the fairy insisted. She heaved herself up off the grass and onto her feet, then started to stagger around dizzily, her wings of ice shards flapping in an attempt to keep her balanced. Once the world stopped spinning and Cirno checked to make sure her shiny new badge was still in place, she looked over at her companion. "What'cha doin'?"

"Found a rock," Kotohime replied, straightening up from her crouch, a pebble in her hand.

"Oh." Cirno cocked her head, peering at the object. "Is it an interesting rock?"

"Of course it is. I wouldn't have picked it up if it hadn't been important," the princess explained, bouncing the stone in her hand lightly, a thoughtful look on her face, before she stowed it in her sleeve. "Are you listening, Cirno?"

"Huh?"

"I need you to act completely casual, like we're having a normal conversation, okay?"

The ice fairy technically always had a chill, so she didn't feel one run down her spine. Instead she felt a worrisome itch between her shoulder blades. "Wha? W-what's going on?" It suddenly occurred to her that the forest clearing they were in had gone unnaturally quiet. Even the breeze seemed to have died.

"Don't look, but there's something lurking in the woods behind you – _don't look_." Kotohime was smiling as she talked, but her red eyes were hard, alert. "It's been watching us for the past few minutes," she said nonchalantly, even as she subtly shifted into a battle stance.

Cirno was starting to sweat with the effort of not spinning around to confront the new threat. "W-what is it?"

"Dunno. Something black and shadowy, something I haven't seen before, some unknown, unknowable horror from the dark heart of the primeval forest, a thing that stalked my ancestors and taught them to fear the night."

Her fairy companion went pale for a few moments, but then her jaw set with determination and she clenched her tiny fists. "So let's blast it!"

"Damn straight. This ain't a danmaku match anymore, so on the count of three, give it your best shot, alright? No holding back. Our lives, and the lives of everyone in Gensokyo, could depend on this battle," warned Kotohime. "Ready? One… two…"

Cirno was too hyped-up to wait for the countdown and spun around, screaming a battlecry. Immediately she lost her balance and fell over, unleashing a cone of ice shards that shredded the leaves and branches overhead. As snow and chunks of foliage rained down on them, a patch of darkness on the other side of the clearing coiled and leapt.

Kotohime saw... well, even when it moved into the now-fading daylight, she couldn't be sure what the thing was. There was something serpentine to it, though it didn't seem restricted to such a simple design. There was an impression of sleek, lethal speed, but also of wickedly-sharp scything talons as long as Cirno was tall. Barbed shapes could have been tails, or they could have been tongues. There was a suggestion of teeth despite a lack of head. But mostly it was dark and utterly alien, a thing that's fundamental quality was that Kotohime's mind had no way of identifying it.

And whatever it was, it was surging right at them.

"Cirno, ice wall!" snapped Kotohime imperiously. Something in the princess' tone made the little fairy respond instinctively and immediately, and with the crunch of condensing air a waist-high barrier of smoking ice manifested between them and the monster. The shadow beast veered away instead of crashing into the obstruction, but began to circle around it with unnatural speed.

"On your feet, officer!" Kotohime commanded as she grabbed the back of Cirno's dress and hauled her upright. "Use an ice lance to keep it back!"

Cirno did her one better and conjured up a quartet of javelin-sized splinters of frost in the air above her, then with a shout she shot them one after the other in a quick barrage. The beast shrank back as the icy spears stabbed deep into the dirt, suddenly seeming unsure of itself.

Kotohime flung an arm at their enemy. "Quick, fire an ice beam!"

Her companion took a deep breath, cupped her hands, then flung them out in front of her, any warcry drowned out by the column of pure elemental cold that roared like a glacial gale. The crisp scent of winter filled the air as the temperature in the clearing plummeted and ice coated the grass. Cirno sustained the beam, teeth clenched, her hair and dress streaming in the freezing wind, her icy wings spread wide and bowed forward as if helping focus the onslaught. The shadow monster sped across the ground like an ambulatory oil slick, barely keeping ahead of Cirno's attack-

Which meant that, for a few precious seconds, the beast was on an easily predicted course.

Kotohime lobbed something, a round metal object the size of an orange. "Fire in the hole!" she warned.

Cirno's ice beam cut off as she turned to give the princess a confused look. Even the shadow monster stopped in puzzlement at the sight of the rough black sphere-

The object landed right in the mass of inky shadows, where it exploded with a _bang! _and a blinding flash of light.

When her vision cleared, all Kotohime could see of their opponent was a cloud of greasy, reeking smoke – though that may have been the gunpowder.

"What'd you _do?_" Cirno demanded between coughs.

"Threw a bomb," the princess replied simply, trying to brush the ice off her robes where one of Cirno's wings had brushed against her.

The ice fairy gaped in astonishment. "But we weren't fighting with danmaku, and I didn't see you use a spell card-"

"No, I mean a _bomb_ bomb," Kotohime clarified. "A princess has to keep busy, so I took up a little applied chemistry." She strolled over to inspect the shallow crater. There was no physical sign of the monster's presence, but that was only to be expected – a creature of shadow would be vaporized by a blast of light like that. "Anyway, I just finished it off," she continued. "You're the one who did most of the work."

The pint-sized frost factory put her hands on her hips and struck a heroic pose. "Of course! I'm the strongest, after all!"

Kotohime chuckled and ruffled her partner's hair affectionately. "I think we work well together."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. With my tactical genius and your unparalleled strength, we're pretty much unstoppable." She scratched her jaw thoughtfully. "Y'know, this could be a new sport. Humans go out, capt- _find_ a fairy partner, train them, and then have them engage in nonlethal duels with other fairy-human teams for everyone's vicious amusement."

"Wouldn't be fair," the ice fairy replied with a fierce grin. "I'm the strongest," she repeated.

"Yeah, you'd probably be banned from tournament play." Kotohime looked around the now-peaceful, if ravaged and frosted clearing. The light beaming down through the hole in the forest canopy had turned a lustrous orange as sunset approached, which Kotohime appreciated because it meant her hair shone like bronze. Birdsong had returned, and best of all there was no malicious presence in her mind any more, leaving her thinking clearly again for the first time in hours. "Once more I'm in your debt, Cirno," she declared. "The psychic shadow beast has been slain, leaving me free to continue protecting Gensokyo from its enemies without and within."

"So we solved the Incident?" asked Cirno.

"Yep, we…" Kotohime trailed off, struggling to remember just what the hell had set her off on her latest adventure. "Wait, no," she corrected herself. "The psionic dominator has been defeated, but the monster that attacked the village is still at large. But at least now I'll be able to go after them."

Cirno leapt into the air, her arms folded cockily as she hovered nearby. "So who's next?"

Kotohime sighed. "Don't know. Have to go get some clues back at the crime scene."

"Oh." The ice fairy looked less than enthusiastic.

"Tell me about it; the detective part isn't nearly as fun as the blowing-stuff-up part." Kotohime drummed her fingers against her thigh, frowning. She gave Cirno a look. "Tell you what, how about you go out on patrol? In case any more of those shadow things are out there. For every one you destroy, I'll have one less obstacle between me and solving this mystery."

"Okay, but..." Cirno frowned. "How do I know what I'm 'posed to shoot? I never got a good look at it. I just saw... gray?"

"Hmm." Kotohime cocked her head as she thought. "Well, just blast anything you don't recognize, how about that? Sweep the area for hostiles. Good ol' search-and-destroy."

"I can do that!" Cirno said, saluting. Her eyes lit up as an idea occurred to her. "Can I get deputies of my own?" she asked.

"Oh, certainly. You're second-in-command of the entire police force, you answer only to me." The princess grinned. "Go muster up a squad while I go dust for prints in the dust. I'll come get you once it's time for the final showdown. If I _don't_ come back, you can avenge me."

"Yeah!" Cirno shot into the air like a sky-blue missile. "I'll get Wriggle and Rumia and Mystia and…"

Kotohime watched her leave, chuckling at the fairy's exuberance, before taking off on a course back towards the human village.

-x-

* * *

><p>-11-<p>

A few minutes later, Nue Houjuu stuck her head out from the bush she'd taken shelter in, carefully confirming that her opponents had gone. Seeing that she was safe, the dark-haired nue lurched out from her hiding spot, sagging with fatigue, the red metallic wings and blue tails that sprouted on opposite sides of her back drooping. She'd hoped for a little fun spooking some people, but _damn_… what was _with _this place? Even the _fairies_ packed a wallop, and then ordinary humans tossed around _bombs_?

Last time she kept her seed of non-identification on herself, then. Better to stick it on something expendable.

Nue sighed and drifted into the air, coasting towards the Myouren Temple like a black cloud. Hopefully she could make it home without Byakuren finding out what she'd been doing. A scolding Nue could handle, but not the monk's look of disappointment…

-x-

* * *

><p>-12-<p>

Kotohime ignored the feeling that it was now dinnertime, assuring herself that she'd had a big, late lunch, and anyway the future of Gensokyo could be decided in the next few hours. She flipped open her notebook as she streaked along like a maroon missile, not reacting when another airborne traveler screamed out a warning before narrowly avoiding a collision with the oblivious princess.

So, Keine. Then Marisa. Then Reimu. Did Daiyousei count? If so, what about the slightly-bigger-than-normal-but-still-nameless fairy? And then Tokiko, and then the shadow thing.

Which made… Kotohime began counting on her fingers. Maybe five, maybe seven encounters. Not bad for a day's detectiving. And it meant, she realized with a grin, that odds were good the next person she bumped into would be the mastermind behind the Incident.

How appropriate, she reflected. She was headed back to the crime scene to belatedly search for clues, and where better to have the ultimate showdown than the place where the adventure began?

-x-

* * *

><p>-13-<p>

Kotohime landed on the outskirts of Hayoto's property, between his fields of… whatever he grew… and the treeline. Instinct told her that stealth was key, so the princess crept along in the lengthening shadows, approaching the house from behind. One hand rested near her pouch of homemade explosives, the other on the hilt of her _jitte_. Her heart was hammering in her chest with anticipation for the final battle. She barely noticed the beautiful colors in the sky above as the sun began to sink behind the mountains, or the cool breeze rustling the new growth in the forest.

This was it, do or die. One way or another, her journey would come to an end.

She reached Hayoto's back yard without meeting anyone, though she spotted movement in the house's windows. Peering closer, Kotohime could see the farmer and his wife working in the kitchen. She considered knocking on the back door so that she'd have an audience for the upcoming epic throwdown-

And then she noticed the shed.

It sat there, innocently, in a shady corner of the yard. There wasn't a mark on it, nor a single scorched patch or piece of debris marring the grass around it, just signs of heavy foot traffic.

Kotohime boggled at it for several long seconds. But she'd seen it scattered all over the yard just this morning! How could… and then her mouth dropped open as realization dawned.

_She had gone back in time._

Somehow, her prodigious powers, combined with her heroic will to see justice done, had propelled her through history, to the very moment the crime she sought to solve was set to occur.

She double-checked. Yep, there was Hayoto, still sporting that ratty mustache and a bald spot everyone but him seemed to have noticed, looking exactly the same as he had that morning – or rather, _tomorrow _morning. He was fixing supper with his family, like he said he'd been when the Incident occurred. And it still felt like springtime, so she wasn't too far removed from her home time period.

A savage grin split Kotohime's face as she sank into a crouch, concealing her purple-robed form in the shadows and underbrush as best she could. Now she would have the perfect opportunity to see who the culprit was! She readied her jitte and took deep calming breaths, waiting for the moment to strike…

And waited…

Her legs began to cramp up from squatting so long. She almost leapt to the attack when she heard something approaching in the woods, but it was just a deer wandering by.

And waited…

Weren't you supposed to drink coffee during stakeouts? Did anyone around here sell the stuff? Also, she was pretty sure a bug had crawled up her dress. While it was good training for keeping her focus, it was also really itchy.

And waited…

Speaking of itchy, she really hoped she wasn't trying to hide in a clump of poison ivy. Wait, that didn't grow in Japan, did it? And if it didn't, then what was she sitting in, anyway?

And waited…

The sun was just a ruddy glow on the horizon, the temperature was dropping, the forest insects were making a racket, and Kotohime was losing patience. Where the hell was the culprit? Surely she'd been sent back to the right time? So why wasn't…

Kotohime gasped as her train of thought reached an inevitable, horrifying conclusion.

There _was_ no culprit coming.

But she'd gone back in time while investigating the destruction of the tool shed.

Which meant…

"Oh no," breathed Kotohime. "No. It was me. It was _me_. _I_ blew up the tool shed."

She wanted to deny it, to scream her outrage at her inability to defy fate. But there was no arguing with the facts. The shed _had_ to be destroyed to preserve the timeline, and there was nobody else around to do it. The reason Kotohime had never discovered the culprit was obvious – after all, she had never considered _herself_ a suspect.

Kotohime took heavy steps out of cover, plodding one pace after another towards her destiny, blinking back furious tears. This was a violation of the very values that drove her to become a policewoman in the first place. How could she look her subjects in the eye, knowing that she was a princess doomed to destroy their treasured tool sheds?

Perhaps this was for the best. Better that she bear this burden than some random troublemaker or innocent bystander. She would nobly sacrifice her soul to save another's.

Kotohime came to a halt before the shed, and examined the simple, charmingly-rustic structure. That such a trivial thing would be her unmaking… it was enough to make her laugh bitterly for a moment. The false mirth faded as she wondered what Hayoto's life would be like if his tool shed had survived. What could he have done with the time spent agonizing over its loss? What wonderful inventions would he never create? And the effects went even wider, like ripples on a pond's surface – peoples' lives he would never touch, friendships that would never be forged. A chain reaction of causality, all depending on whether or not this tool shed was destroyed.

She knew that, at this very moment, her past self was frittering away an evening at home, living her life free and happy, blissfully unaware that she was the plaything of fate. Kotohime envied that woman, who could enjoy a few more hours of childish naiveté. But she shook herself out of her reverie. She had delayed long enough. It was time to end the charade, to meet her destiny.

Her face set in grim concentration, Kotohime summoned all of her magical power. She never considered herself a fire magus, but she could do what had to be done. She felt the flames kindle in her cupped hands, let the warmth and brightness grow until it looked like a star had alighted in the yard. And with a cry of despair she flung her dreadful payload at the tool shed.

She wouldn't call it a _kaboom_, more like a _choom._

Kotohime didn't react as burning wood fragments missed her face by inches as they streaked past at just under the speed of sound. She ignored the blast of heat that blew her glorious red hair into disarray and set the hem of her dress smoldering. She didn't blink from the blinding flash of light. She endured it all, because she would not look away from what she had been forced to do.

In a heartbeat, the hopes and dreams of a humble farmer had been reduced to a smear of ash on the ground and a few pieces of kindling.

Kotohime turned and slowly walked away, back into the treeline, noting how the now-vanished sun mirrored the shadow over her soul quite poetically. She could hear a commotion coming from Hayoto's home, the slam of the back door. There was a moment of stunned silence, and then a man screamed "_WHY?"_ at the uncaring heavens.

The princess wanted to go to him, comfort him, grieve with him. But she couldn't bear to see the look on his face when he learned what she had done and why she had to do it.

Would she ever be able to wear her badge again? Could she lead Gensokyo, scarred as she was by this ordeal?

"In time, perhaps," Kotohime quietly assured herself. "In time."

She marched deeper into the woods, away from the possibility of human company. She felt like being alone for a while, and she couldn't exactly go home – after all, there would be another Kotohime running around until things caught up with themselves the next day. So she resolved to spend the night out in the Forest of Magic, both as penance and in order to preserve the timeline.

Kotohime came to a stop in a likely clearing, looking around for places to curl up and call it an early night. A rock… a mossy log… a pile of animal droppings…

She frowned in distaste. She was, above all else, a _princess_. This wouldn't do at all.

-x-

* * *

><p>-14-<p>

"What are you doing?"

Kotohime turned and looked down at the speaker. She had to twist her neck a bit since she couldn't really pivot, being up in a tree hanging on for her life, but she could make out blond hair and a blue-and-white blouse, and that meant Alice Margatroid. Of course, the pair of dolls hovering near her shoulders like a couple of well-dressed moons was also a dead giveaway.

The princess spat the nails she had been holding in her mouth into a cupped hand so she could talk, and wedged her hammer in the crook between two branches. "Making a treehouse, of course," she said as though it were obvious.

Alice gave the other woman a cool stare as she surveyed the scene. There was a bunch of wooden planks nailed haphazardly into the tree's branches, resembling not so much a house or platform as it did a carpenter's sneeze. "I was wondering what those noises were last night," the magician commented. "That was you, wasn't it? Hammering and making a racket past midnight?"

"Yep." Kotohime took a moment to swig from a flask of something she had stashed down one sleeve.

"So you were building your tree house all night long," Alice continued.

"That's right," Kotohime replied. Alice noticed the woman's eyes were bloodshot and had dark circles under them. Given that the irises were already red, the result was quite creepy.

"Why?"

Kotohime blinked at her. "So I'd have a place to sleep," the princess explained, as she would to a child.

Alice stared for a moment, and considered asking where Kotohime had gotten the tools, the building materials, the flask, or the half-eaten breakfast sitting on a plate at the base of the tree. Instead she turned around without further word and walked back to her cottage, refusing to get involved.

Kotohime shrugged and got back to work designing her arboreal palace.

-x-

* * *

><p><em><strong>Author's Notes<strong>_

__Once upon a time we had a thread on the TV Tropes forums that went through every single __Touhou __character, discussing them and our interpretations of them, and that's where I first encountered a princess who was secretly a police officer. Normally I'd just dismiss Kotohime as another example of __Touhou's__ pre-Windows weirdness (as opposed to its contemporary weirdness), but I had one of those random thoughts and impulsively characterized her as Gensokyo's answer to Emperor Norton (look him up on Wikipedia, he's all kinds of awesome). And the idea was so appealing it wouldn't go away. I kept thinking of all the fun you could have with a character like that and the stories you could tell.  
><em>_

__So I wrote one. I like to write, and sometimes you just __have _to vent some of the stuff that your mind comes up with. I wrote down some plot bunnies, sometimes going on for pages, sometimes managing a sentence or two just to get a punchline down. I wasn't really _intending_ to write fanfiction, and at most I thought I _might_ share some of the stuff on the forums. But it got too big, and so I wound up here, which I'm still trying to wrap my head around._

_This was the first Kotohime story I came up with, and I pretty much wrote it by the seat of my pants - though I was lucky enough to come up with the ending around a third of the way into it. I certainly wasn't expecting it to get so _big_, but that's how it turned out. Now I'm worried that future entries will all seem puny by comparison. I can only hope they end up spiraling out of control too. _

_If you're wondering how Marisa managed to damage her witchy hat in the lab accident despite wearing a helmet, the answer is either a) she likes to keep it nearby or b) she was wearing it on top of the helmet._

_ No, Cirno didn't get in trouble over her "badge;" Meiling was quite happy that the fairy found her lost accessory. And don't worry too much over whether nèijìng is the right term for what Cirno's been learning or trying to employ. Remember who's talking, after all._

_I keep hearing "Invincible" from the _World of Warcraft _soundtrack during the story's heartbreaking climax. Oddly enough, I don't associate _Zelda_'s fairy fountain music with Daiyousei's grotto, but "Garden of the Gods" from _Chrono Cross._  
><em>


	3. Kotohime and the Child of Miare

**_Kotohime and the Child of Miare_**

* * *

><p>Maniacal Princess<strong><br>Kotohime**

Occupation: Princess(?), Police Officer(?)  
>Ability: ?<br>Residence: Human village.

Possibly the most unusual human resident of Gensokyo. She describes herself as a princess, and also claims to be a policewoman, which she uses to justify her "investigations" of events that catch her attention. She is easy to recognize with her long red hair and fine clothing. She acts very relaxed unless she is "investigating" something, during which times she is a whirlwind of energy. This occasionally means that she acts as a youkai hunter, which would make her a possible ally for people in danger of youkai attack if no alternatives are available.

**Abilities**  
>She has some skill as a magician, and is reputed to be able to launch a formidable barrage of danmaku. However, she has not been seen engaging in a proper battle in recent memory. Perhaps her greatest assets are her enthusiasm for her hobbies, and her... unique outlook.<p>

**Royal Title?**  
>Neither the <em>Gensokyo Chronicles<em> of the Hieda family nor any records from the human village make mention of her, or of any princess of Gensokyo, for that matter (*1). Nevertheless she insists that she is royalty, and will ignore any talk that questions this. It is possible that she is a princess from the outside world who immigrated to Gensokyo. She does not speak of her past, and has never mentioned her family's name. It is a mystery that may never be solved. If nothing else, she has an attitude that expects to be obeyed, and often that is enough to make others obey her.

**Investigations**  
>As she claims to also be a police officer, sometimes she will try to solve crimes or mysteries. She has not revealed what her success rate is, but maintains that she is satisfied with the end of every investigation. This does not seem to extend to magical incidents, however. She played no role in the Scarlet Mist, Spring Snow, Eternal Night, or any other noteworthy Incidents of the past years. She claims she "delegates" her authority to others who act in her stead (*2).<p>

**History With Incident Resolvers**  
>She says she is good friends with Reimu Hakurei and Marisa Kirisame, though both disagree. Allegedly her relationship with them extends to shortly after they first began resolving Incidents. She refers to a contest in which they and other adventurers battled over the right to enter and claim the prizes of a mysterious ruin that suddenly appeared one day. She insists that she won, but has yet to give a straightforward account (*3) of what treasure she gained (*4). However, like many rumors of Reimu Hakurei and Marisa Kirisame's early history, there are few authorities to question, and many people believe the two only began such activities during the Scarlet Mist Incident (*5).<p>

**Eyewitness Accounts**  
>"Princess or not, she's totally loaded. She's always got the money to buy what she wants, and her house is full of interesting stuff." (M. Kirisame)<br>I will not bother to ask how you know what she stores in her home.  
>"How rude! I'll have you know she invited me inside."<p>

"I'm pretty sure she has an imaginary friend. I watched her walking along by herself in the middle of the street, talking to 'Koishi' for half an hour straight." (Anonymous)  
>Noble families sometimes have a history of mental illness.<p>

"I hired her to exterminate whatever had been attacking my chickens. She came back over a week later with some bird youkai in chains, but I'd already caught the fox that was doing it." (T. Noguchi)  
>What did you do with the youkai?<br>"Gave the poor thing some tea. She looked like she'd been through quite an ordeal."

1. Strictly speaking, the princess of Eientei is an exile from the Lunar Kingdom, and does not represent Gensokyo.  
>2. The fact that she seems to learn about these incidents only after they've been resolved by others may be relevant.<br>3. I do not think she was taking the interview very seriously, as she kept making up bizarre words and told a story about teenagers from another world.  
>4. The Hakurei shrine maiden is strangely reluctant to discuss this issue.<br>5. I am fortunate to be reincarnated into an era of great historic import, but cursed to suffer from a lack of proper documentation.

-x-

* * *

><p>-1-<p>

Hieda no Akyuu sighed as she skimmed over her work by lamplight, still not satisfied with it. It just seemed to lack something. A lot of somethings, really: facts, credibility, confidence... She may as well be putting down things she heard in the marketplace, which sadly wasn't that far removed from how she'd gotten some of her information.

She winced and rubbed her temple wearily, silently chiding herself for trying to read and write with insufficient light, and turned in her chair to look out the open window. The night air was still heavy with the scent of the afternoon's showers, and she breathed deep of it before letting out a slow sigh, running a hand through her deep violent hair.

Akyuu's task, her lifelong purpose, the very reason she was born, was to record Gensokyo's history and catalog its more noteworthy inhabitants, as other Children of Miare had done for generations before her. But none of her memories from her previous incarnations suggested that her predecessors had such a difficult time as she did – Genoskyo was changing before her very eyes, making her entries out of date as soon as she wrote them down. New humans and youkai kept appearing to make her "definitive" guide to Gensokyo obsolete, and if that wasn't enough there were oddities like Kotohime who hinted at events Akyuu hadn't covered yet, or wasn't even sure had actually happened.

She wondered if she should just cut Kotohime altogether. The article was an embarrassment so far, and she still had so much to do! Interview Byakuren Hijiri of the Myouren Temple, attain safe passage to the Underground to interview the youkai there... her time was short, and she never had enough sources, and some days she just wanted to chuck her books in the fireplace, though that last impulse may have something to do with being a teenager again. If-

"'Maniacal Princess,' huh?"

Akyuu nearly fell out of her chair, her flailing arms knocking over her ink bottle and dousing a sheet of parchment.

"I'll get that," her unexpected visitor said helpfully, blotting up the liquid with the hem of her formal purple kimono. "Lucky you! It landed on a blank page!"

"W-w-w, y-y-y-" Akyuu stammered, struggling to find words over her jangling nerves.

Kotohime snatched the draft and took a seat on the dry portion of Akyuu's desk. She squinted at the pages for a second before producing a slim pair of reading glasses from somewhere. "So what do you think?" she asked as she donned the spectacles. "Eh? Look intellectual?"

"What are you doing here?" Akyuu finally gasped, her rich purple eyes wide with shock.

"Gathering intel," the princess responded. "Anyway: glasses. Make me look smart and sophisticated or dorky and blind?"

"_How_ did you get in?" demanded Akyuu, looking around her room wildly. Her door was wide open, true, but her parents always made sure the front and back-

"But you left the bathroom window wide open," Kotohime supplied as though reading her thoughts. "If you hadn't wanted me to come in, you should have done a better job of locking up the place. But that's not important." She alternated between keeping her eyewear in place and lifting it off her face. "C'mon, tell me: better one or better two?"

"Do you even need them?"

"Nah."

"Then," said Akyuu, still reeling from having someone break in to ask about fashion, "I don't think you should wear them."

"Hmm." Kotohime pulled her glasses off and gave them a long look. "Guess you're right. Save 'em for a disguise, then." She stowed them, and went back to reading her profile.

Akyuu considered slipping out and summoning her parents, but her curiosity won out. "You said you were 'gathering intel?'"

"You betcha. See, I'm a historian myself-"

"Really," interrupted the Child of Miare in a flat tone.

Kotohime shifted in her improvised seat. "Well, _aspiring_ historian," she admitted. "I'm trying to do the _Royal Chronicles of Gensokyo-_"

Akyuu's frown shifted more towards a scowl.

"-but I'm having trouble getting started." Kotohime shrugged. "So I thought, 'hey, read another historian's work and see how they do it.'"

Her unwilling host tried to remind herself that imitation was supposed to be the dearest form of flattery. "Well-"

"And I wanna see what developed from our little talk," Kotohime said. She flapped the page she was holding and got back to reading. "The more I read it, the more I like 'Maniacal Princess,'" she declared. "Puts people on their toes, makes 'em think I'm liable to do _anything _to them."

"It seemed appropriate," Akyuu said weakly.

"Could be better, though. 'Princess of Paradise,' for example. Or 'Royal Judicator!' Wait, no, that one sounds like an appointed office."

The purple-haired young historian couldn't think of what to say.

Kotohime kept reading. "Oh that's rich. 'Dot-dot-dot unique outlook.' What, too professional to call someone crazy?" When Akyuu couldn't stammer out an answer, Kotohime shrugged and returned to the paper. "Huh, am I really that hard to find records about?" She sounded disappointed.

"I'm sorry to say that I'm the most dedicated historian in Gensokyo," Akyuu told her.

"Oh, I don't doubt that. It's just..." Kotohime shifted in her seat. "I was hoping I'd gotten more attention. I mean, what's the point of being a princess and police officer if no one knows you're working? As a virtuous princess I am of course the epitome of humility, but if there's not at least _one_ epic legend about my deeds someday, I'm going to be angry." She gave Akyuu a pointed look.

"I'm s-sorry!" the girl said, raising her hands helplessly to ward off the Angry Eyes. "I can only write what I know!"

Kotohime nodded, conceding the point, and looked thoughtful for a long moment. "I have an idea," she said finally, and Akyuu fought the impulse to bolt for the door at the sight of the princess' smile. "Interview time! C'mon!" And with that she grabbed Akyuu's shoulder and started to march her out of her room.

"Wait, what? But can't we-"

"Nah, I wanna go somewhere more comfortable, preferably with beer." Kotohime jerked her head at the rest of the Hieda household. "You don't have a curfew, do you?"

"I've never needed one, and-"

"Super," Kotohime interrupted. "Hey, Mr. and Mrs. Akyuu's Parents!" she yelled. "I'm taking your daughter slash ancestor out for a drink! Back in an hour or two!" She hustled the historian out onto the rain-slick streets without waiting for a response. Akyuu was thankful that she hadn't yet changed into her pajamas.

-x-

* * *

><p>-2-<p>

The background conversation in the tavern stopped for a moment when Kotohime escorted her "interviewer" through the door. Then there was the usual mix of cheery, inebriated greetings and cold dread as some of the patrons hurriedly finished off their drinks and meals in preparation of a quick escape.

The establishment's owner and bartender froze in the act of pouring someone a glass and groaned. "Oh _good_."

"Good evening, Mr. Meiunjishaku," Kotohime said with a bright smile and polite bow.

"So what's it gonna be tonight?" asked the burly barkeep. "Another fire? A girl who keels over but then gets up and walks out half an hour later? Or are you gonna take it easy and settle for simple property damage?"

"I'm just here to talk to someone in a place I can get the proper lubrication for my lips," the princess replied. "And possibly enjoy an unhealthy but satisfying snack. Something fried? I'm not picky what."

The tavern's owner looked suspicious, and gestured at Kotohime's companion. "And who's this? Couldn't get a babysitter?" he asked sarcastically. "You know the rules, no kids."

"Ah, but this here is Akyuu of the Hiedas," Kotohime pointed out. "She may _look_ eleven-"

"Fifteen," Akyuu mumbled, red-faced and staring at the floor.

The princess looked down at her. "Really? Must be a late bloomer. Anyway," she went on, "she's technically over twelve _hundred_ years old. She reincarnates."

"That a fact?" The man shrugged. "I guess that makes it alright. Just so long as she doesn't do it in here," he joked.

"I'm not ordering anything alcoholic," Akyuu spoke up.

Kotohime gave her an amused look. "What, you chicken?"

Akyuu glared at her. "Shouldn't you be _against_ underage drinking?" She turned to bow at the barkeep. "If you have any sort of juice, I'll drink that. If not, water will be fine." Tea would be even better, but it was regrettably too late in the evening.

The man shrugged. "I'll see what we have in the back," he said as he left his post and went through a door into the kitchens.

Kotohime exchanged a quick greeting with the woman who acted as the place's back-up bartender and part-time waitress, then picked a two-person booth close to the bar. "Here we are," she said as she slid into her seat, where she slouched at ease, idly picking at a tear in the upholstery.

In contrast, Akyuu sat primly, nervously sweeping her gaze over the dozen or so other patrons of the bar, mostly middle-aged workers killing time before returning home for bed. They looked innocuous, though there were hints of a supernatural ancestry in a few of them – one man's red face was too deep a shade to be purely due to alcohol, while Akyuu spotted another person with purple hair sitting rigidly at the bar with their back to them. "So what's this place called?" she asked her companion.

"The-" Kotohime stopped and suddenly groaned, then gave Akyuu a glare. "You did it wrong."

"Pardon?"

"I don't wear a crown," Kotohime explained, pointing at her bare head in case Akyuu didn't believe her. "Princesses usually do. So when someone asks where my crown is, I get to say 'just off the town square, open two to twelve!'"

Akyuu gave her an uncomprehending look.

"This is _The Princess' Crown_," continued Kotohime. "I named it, of course."

"You made the sign and nailed it above my door," called the bartender as he emerged from the kitchen with a tray of drinks. "I came to work one day and there she was with a ladder and hammer."

"Your fault for not coming up with a name beforehand," Kotohime chided.

"I _had_. _The Lucky Fish_. You tore down the old sign and ran off with it." He set down the tray with a bump. "Here you are, a glass of apple juice," he said to Akyuu, before turning to Kotohime. "And _your_ usual-"

"Whatever you grabbed on the way out the door," Kotohime finished. She inspected the offered bottle. "Aw, wine? Well, thems the breaks." She poured herself a glass, swigged it down in an instant, and sat back, a sleepy smile on her face as the tavern's owner returned to his place behind the bar.

Akyuu took a sip of her drink, barely tasting it, then picked up the pencil and notebook she habitually carried in case she saw something worth recording. If she was getting dragged into an interview, she might as well get it over with. "So, ah... where should we begin?"

"Oh, let's start with the basics. I am Kotohime, Princess of Gensokyo, Chief of Police, Defender of the Realm, Part-Time Youkai Hunter, Ambassador to Fairykind, Protector of Makai, sworn enemy of the Lunar Kingdom, three-time Kourindou Customer of the Month, and lapsed penpal of Hakugyokurou."

"That's... quite an impressive collection of titles," Akyuu said, scrambling to get them all down. "As for the name-"

"Just Kotohime," the princess said. "Best to keep it simple, and people will know who you're talking about anyway."

"Y-yes..." Akyuu made another note before looking up. "What about your age?"

Kotohime rolled her eyes. "You've reincarnated _how_ many times without learning to never ask a woman that question?"

"Family?"

"Mother and father, naturally," Kotohime told her. "Not sure where they are, though."

"They left you?"

"Of course not. They _retired_." At Akyuu's confused look, Kotohime explained. "Well, Gensokyo's a princess-ocracy, you know? They couldn't exactly stick around as king and queen. Plus in their long and storied careers they'd made their fair share of enemies. So, once I came of age and took up the crown - figuratively speaking - they bowed out and started new lives for themselves."

The reincarnating historian opened and shut her mouth a few times. "I did not know royalty functioned that way," she said finally.

"It only makes sense. I mean, we're basically superheroes."

"What about siblings?" Akyuu heard herself ask.

"One evil twin," Kotohime told her. At Akyuu's incredulous stare, she added "Well, maybe not _exactly_ a twin. Her hair is purple and she likes red robes, while I'm the other way around, of course. But other than her poor fashion sense, she is in every way my equal."

"And you're sure she's evil because...?"

"Because _I'm_ the good one," said Kotohime. "Doesn't take a rocket wizard to figure out what she is."

"Does she have a name?"

"I dunno. Evil Kotohime? Onihime? Wait, the oni might already have a princess..."

Akyuu sighed, starting to regret not ordering some alcohol. "I don't suppose you have any documentation that could reinforce these statements?"

"What, isn't it obvious? The royal blood just kind of shines through. Like if I had bioluminescent hemoglobin." Kotohime shrugged. "Anyway, I shouldn't have to 'prove' that I'm a princess any more than I should have to 'prove' that I'm a woman."

"I can think of some ways you can prove you're a woman!" shouted an older gentleman half-slumped against the bar. There were a few drunken chortles, but the atmosphere in the tavern seemed to darken with tension for a moment. When Kotohime just chuckled good-naturedly, the sober segment of the population almost audibly sighed with relief.

Akyuu took a long sip of her drink, reflecting that lukewarm watered-down fruit juice was less satisfying than a simple glass of water. "I... suppose that will do for your background," she said, and tried to remember what came next on her rough draft. "How would you describe your abilities? Some Gensokyans have a distinct magical talent, have you anything like that?"

"Oh, I'm pretty much the total package," Kotohime assured her. She took a long swig directly from the wine bottle before going on. "I may not be a youkai-grade magician, but I can blow stuff up quite nicely when I want to. On a similar note, I've mastered the secrets of gunpowder for my personal amusement. I've trained in swordsmanship under the legendary Youki Konpaku, and I've picked up other assorted martial arts during my adventures abroad. I'm a delta-grade psionicist, specializing in telepathy, though I try to keep that a secret so you shouldn't write that one down. Olympic-grade markswoman. Drop-kicked a bear once. I'm pretty sure I'm immortal. And..." she scratched her jaw, thinking. "Oh, and I can fly."

Akyuu stared. "With all due respect-"

"Not like everyone else can," Kotohime explained. "I don't cheat with magic, I've just attained sufficient spiritual enlightenment to levitate at will. Check this out!" True to her words, the princess rose into the air to hover a few inches out of her seat. "Eh? _Eh?_"

Akyuu blinked, slowly, feeling a headache coming on. "Words fail me." This was a waste of time, she realized. There was no way she could put this stuff down in the official histories. Just the thought of having her lifetimes' work sullied by this insanity-

There was a quiet, subtle little sound, a noise that was indescribable but unmistakable. A sudden silence fell over the tavern as a tear in reality – no, not a tear, not nearly as untidy. This was more like if a seam had gotten separated, leaving a small gap hanging in the air over the bar, a gap into a murky place of dark red and purple haze. A pair of cheery red ribbon had somehow been tied in a neat bow around each narrow end of the gap's edges, which made things even more bizarre.

A pale arm reached out through the dimensional tear, a woman's hand groping blindly on the countertop. The bartender wordlessly pushed a bottle of sake forward and the offending arm quickly snatched it up before disappearing into the gap. A second later a handful of change fell out to clatter on top of the polished wooden surface, and then with another strange sound the hole in reality shut itself.

After a moment, everyone in The Princess' Crown returned to their conversations, as though trying to pretend what they had just witnessed hadn't happened.

"I think she's getting more active," Kotohime said, staring coldly at where the gap had been. "Ten years ago Yukari was just a legend, a bogeywoman who spirited away bad children. Now no booze is safe." She took a hasty pull from her own bottle of wine, as though afraid it might be next.

Akyuu shook herself. It was one thing to know what the Youkai of Boundaries was capable of, it was quite enough to see it happen ten feet from you. And no matter how many times she saw the Lady Yakumo use her power... "I, uh, suppose now would be a good time to talk about your past adventures," she said, trying to move on.

"Investigations," Kotohime corrected, but she relaxed in her seat and smiled wistfully. "Those were the days. Good times. I already told you about the ruins."

"So you did," Akyuu said uncertainly. "Though perhaps you could elaborate and clarify-"

"Oh, it was pretty straightforward. I went undercover and entered the contest to win the prize of the mysterious ruins, which turned out to be a probability space hypervessel piloted by a teenaged college professor and her younger grad student assistant as they searched for proof that magic exists so they could bring it back to their home dimension and validate their unconventional theories." Kotohime sipped some more wine. "They were fun."

Her interviewer was frozen in her seat, her pencil hovering over her paper.

"Of course, that was just one day," the princess went on. "I've done lots of other stuff, gone places. Been to China, fought ninja. Been to the States, fought more ninja. Been to Kenya, fought a hippopotamus. Been to the moon, twice, fought lunar rabbit ninja, twice. Walked on the surface of the sun-"

"Really," Akyuu said flatly, her pencil moving almost without her realizing it.

"Yeah. It was hot. Not much to see, though, and certainly not worth the trouble of getting there," said Kotohime, waving her hand dismissively. "Just stick your head in the fireplace and save yourself a trip."

"And were there ninja on the sun?" the historian asked, not bothering to hide her sarcasm.

"You'd _think_ so, but no, I didn't see any. Not enough shadows to hide in, I guess," said the princess with a shrug. "Of course all that was fairly routine stuff."

Akyuu glanced down at what she'd written so far. _This woman is crazy this woman is crazy this woman is crazy..._ "So all this was police work?"

"Hmm..." Kotohime tapped her jaw thoughtfully. "It's hard to tell. Sometimes I'm just minding my own business and get drawn into some ninja plot, sometimes I'm investigating an unrelated case and it turns out to be ninja all along, you know? And sometimes I'm going abroad on a diplomatic mission when _bam_, ninja. And other times I'm in hot pursuit of ninja into exotic new places." She chugged down another mouthful of wine. "The point is that you never stop being a policewoman any more than you stop being a princess. So _everything_ I do is police business. Or princess business."

There was a long pause, Akyuu mentally arguing with herself over when and how she should leave. "So-"

"Wait, did I say ninja?" Kotohime asked suddenly. "'cause I meant lesbians."

The historian's brain simply shut down.

"Yeah, definitely lesbians – that _is _the right word, isn't it? I meant... what'cha call it, the ones with..." The princess furrowed her brow, thinking hard. "Ah, tip of my tongue. I'll remember in a minute." She took another long pull from her wine bottle, while nearby a red-faced man fell off his barstool, shaking with silent laughter.

Akyuu blinked as if coming out of a daze. "You-"

"Yeah, I've had an incredible career," Kotohime went on. "Lots of good fights, lots of cases solved. But I'd have to say my proudest accomplishment was banding together with a team of heroes from across history to defeat a chronophage. Though," she added, "the problem with defeating one of those is that afterwards there was technically never any threat to begin with, and you and your comrades are the only ones who even remember it." She sniffed. "Which is a total goddamn ripoff."

"Were you _always_ like this?" Akyuu asked bluntly.

"Well, nobody is _born_ a hero," the princess said modestly. "We all have our awkward moments while we're learning the ropes, mastering our superpowers, that sort of thing." She broke into a wide smile. "Take Reimu, ferinstance," she said, swiveling in her seat so she could address the rest of the tavern as well. "She may be an unbeatable force of divine retribution _now_, but you shoulda seen her when she was just getting started. Did you know there was a time that the mighty Reimu Hakurei was an incompetent spaz?"

Some of the folks at the bar murmured their surprise, but the practiced way they did so suggested to Akyuu that this was a familiar story.

"'s true! She couldn't fly on her own, she couldn't danmaku for crap, and she had no control over that yin-yang orb of hers. So when she got in a fight she'd end up smacking that yin-yang with her gohei and sending it ricocheting all over the place." Kotohime took a moment to do her best impression of young Reimu, juggling her sloshing wine bottle with a comically-frantic expression on her face, earning some chuckles and appreciative applause as droplets of liquid rained around her. Akyuu noticed that the purple-haired man still sat with his back to them, and seemed to tense as Kotohime told her story.

After catching the bottle, Kotohime briefly stood up to bow for her audience, took another swig, and settled back down with Akyuu. "I tell ya, those were the days. Things were so much simpler then. Before all those plots and schemes and whatnot making everything so difficult. You just picked a direction and blasted everything you came across, without having to justify it."

Akyuu frowned. "I cannot help but find such sentiments surprising coming from a person interested in maintaining law and ord-"

"But those days have passed." Kotohime was staring down at the table, suddenly somber. "Nobody remembers them. Nobody remembers the contest to enter the ruins, the demon tourists, any of that other stuff. Kana's gone, Yumemi and Chiyuri went home, and hardly anyone recognizes _me_. Other oldtimers like Yuuka and Alice are practically different people. Youkai. Whatever. And Reimu's suddenly the lynchpin holding the place together, even _Marisa_'s matured. Somewhat." She shook her head slightly, her eyes lowered. "And I'm left behind."

The Child of Miare was stunned. Kotohime normally bounded around Gensokyo like she owned the place, with an energy that bordered on mania. But suddenly the self-proclaimed princess looked weary, lost. It was touchingly tragic, and Akyuu felt her heart go out to-

"Fried stuff, comin' out!" called the serving girl as she stepped out of the kitchen, bearing a steaming plate. "Here ya go, princess," she said as she set down her greasy, glistening cargo.

"Delivering the goods as always, Chieko," declared a suddenly-perky Kotohime, beaming her approval. "My arteries are clogging just looking at the stuff!"

"Glad you like, glad you like," the other woman said with a somewhat tired smile. "It's past dinner, but we still had some-"

"Don't tell me," Kotohime interrupted. "I wanna guess."

-x-

* * *

><p>-3-<p>

Akyuu was at a loss of what to do while Kotohime ate her snack. She'd have _liked_ to go home, but Kotohime still wanted to talk between bites, and the historian had to admit that what she was hearing was informative, even if it said more about a woman's mental illnesses than Gensokyo's history. But the princess didn't want to talk "business" over her meal, so Akyuu had asked about the incidents the bar's owner had mentioned when they first walked in. That had led to Kotohime relating the story of the time Fujiwara no Mokou last visited the bar, and _that _led to-

"-which was really disappointing, since I was hoping to bring the two feuding immortals together," Kotohime said around a chunk of food. "They'd make a cute couple."

"Never mind that the two hate and routinely murder each other?" the historian pointed out.

"Hate's a kind of love," Kotohime argued, swallowing her morsel with a loud gulp. "It keeps you up at night, the passion of it overrides reason, and let me tell you, sister, there's no sex like nemesis sex." She sniggered. "Nemesex. Write that down in your history, I coined the term."

"I hardly think this is an appropriate subject for someone my age," Akyuu said archly.

That got another snigger. "Yeah, sure. So who do _you_ think Mokou will end up?"

Akyuu shrugged. "I am in no position to make assumptions about her love life," but then she hesitated. It was absolutely none of her business, and she had much better things to do with her time, but a part of her that she had a feeling was closely tied to her adolescent body found itself strangely invested in the question of who Fujiwara no Mokou might form a relationship with.

"Though if she _does_ favor women," Akyuu went on, "well, she seems to have a close friendship with Miss Kamishirasawa."

"Keine may be half-youkai, but Mokou will still outlive her," Kotohime pointed out. "Kaguya's a better bet in the long term."

"Just because a relationship won't last forever doesn't mean you shouldn't pursue it," Akyuu protested. "You have to make the most of what time you have, even – _especially_ if you don't have much time left." She stiffened when she realized what she had just said, then slowly sagged in her seat, staring moodily into her glass of juice.

Kotohime gave her a long look. "Speaking from experience, are we?" she asked softly.

"No," the historian quietly replied. She looked very small, very sad, and despite her teenage body, very old.

Her companion was silent for a few moments, seemed to reach a mental decision, and reached deep into her sleeve. Kotohime rummaged around before eventually producing... "Ta-da!"

Akyuu blinked as a doll-like form, no taller than a grown man's handspan, tumbled onto the table with a thud. To her astonishment the tiny figure shifted, rising into a sleepy cross-legged seat, yawning hugely and stretching. "Is that an _oni?"_

"Kind of." Kotohime prodded the diminutive creature in the back, making it turn around to glare up at the princess.

"That's Suika Ibuki!" gaped Akyuu, recognizing the twisted horns, the baggy blue pants, the ginger hair, and most of all the childish build that belied the oni's awesome power.

"_A_ Suika," corrected the princess. She leaned forward, nearly resting her chin on the table to look the tiny oni in the face. "Hey. Mini-Suika. _Beer_. Go get us some _beer_." The inches-high figure broke out into a huge smile, nodded, and staggered off with surprising speed, hopping off the table without difficulty and scurrying towards the bar, making a passing man do a little dance to avoid stepping on her.

Akyuu stared, her momentary moroseness forgotten. "How did-"

"She can do that thing where she becomes a bunch of little Suikas, right? So I snatched one," Kotohime explained, shrugging. "So far she hasn't missed it, and Mini-Suika doesn't seem to mind either, so it's win-win. And here she comes."

A jug of something alcoholic seemed to hover along the floor, then sloshed as the tiny oni bounded up onto the top of the table again, easily holding the glass container over her head.

"_Good_ girl!" praised the princess. She took the jug, popped the cork, and topped off her glass, mixing the new drink with her leftover wine. Then she looked over at her companion. "Wanna see a trick?" she asked. Not giving Akyuu a chance to answer, Kotohime grabbed the miniature Suika, who made a _wheeee!_ noise as the princess positioned her above the lip of the jug. "Make sure the horns don't get caught aaaaand..." With a _plunk_, the tiny oni dropped into the vessel of booze, and Kotohime replaced the cork.

Akyuu gave her an incredulous look. "She doesn't drown?"

"Quite the contrary. Watch." The two sat quietly as the level of liquid in the dark brown glass slowly but steadily receded. "It's pretty physics-breaking," Kotohime explained. "There's no way she could be storing all that hooch in her body. So my theory is that oni metabolize alcohol so quickly that it doesn't have time to fill their stomachs, or else she's somehow sending the booze to the 'main' Suika." She smiled. "I might be helping her get - well, _stay_ drunk, and she doesn't even know it."

Within seconds there was nothing in the container but a humanoid shadow staggering around at the bottom of the jug. Akyuu thought she could hear muffled, off-key singing.

"The tricky bit is getting her out again," Kotohime admitted.

The not-quite-empty jug lurched as its occupant bumped into its side. The singing stopped, replaced by what sounded like one side of an argument. Then the glass container jolted and bounced right over the table edge to shatter on the floor.

From behind the bar, the establishment's owner gave Kotohime a long-suffering look. "You'll owe me for the glass too," he said as he reached for a broom to sweep up the mess.

"You know I'm good for it," Kotohime said as she scooped up "her" mini-Suika and stowed the tiny oni down a sleeve without any protest. The princess flapped her arm a bit to get things settled, pushed aside her now-empty plate, and folded her hands on the table, giving Akyuu a studious look. "Now. What _shall_ we talk about next?"

The historian cleared her throat and consulted her notebook. "I would like some more information about your casework-"

"Nah, those are classified, and we've talked plenty about me anyway. So what about _you?"_

"Me?"

"Yeah!" Kotohime squinted suspiciously at her. "The people of Gensokyo have a right to know about the person behind their history texts. Who histories the historians, eh?"

Akyuu blinked. "It's traditional to include a brief autobiography – _hey!"_ She lunged forward, reaching across the table to grab at what Kotohime had produced from her sleeve. "_Give that back!_" she yelled, red-faced, aware that she looked and sounded very much like an irate teenager. Which, technically, she was.

Kotohime leaned out of reach, trying to read the slim volume she was holding at arm's length above her head. "I'm just wondering how a historian who lives only to write found time to keep a diary as well. I mean, if it were _me_ I'd be sick of pens and pencils by the time I went to bed, I wouldn't jot down _more_ stuff in a journal."

With a grunt of effort Akyuu lunged forward and wrested her diary out of the princess' grasp, trying to ignore the stares of the men in the bar. "That's private," she muttered, blushing hotly.

"And boring. From what I read you write about _writing_." Kotohime gave her a pained look. "Surely there's more to your life than that?"

"I have friends!" Akyuu protested.

"People you interview don't count."

"I, I get invited to places-"

"Though you can consider _me_ you friend," Kotohime added cheerfully.

"And... uh, thanks?"

"Don't mention it. I have the utmost respect for my fellow public servants." The princess sank back in her seat. "After all, if it weren't for your written histories, a certain were-hakutaku could nom the past away. And as I mentioned I've already dealt with that sort of thing, and once was quite enough."

Akyuu blinked. "You mean Miss Kamishirasawa-"

"But what else is there to the Ninth Child of Miare?" Kotohime continued. Akyuu must have missed the princess donning her glasses and getting out a notepad. "Take away the _Gensokyo Chronicles_ and what's left?"

It seemed to Akyuu that the entire tavern had gone quiet to listen for her answer. "I..." She swallowed, her mouth suddenly dry. "I like music."

"What kind?"

"Uh, it's kind of hard to explain-"

"Skip it then. What else?"

A longer, infinitely more awkward pause. "I like black tea."

Kotohime gave her a blank look, before making a quick note. "Moving right along. Reincarnation! How's that working out for ya? What's it like, being effectively immortal?"

"It's not that simple," Akyuu protested. On the one hand, it was kind of a personal question, but at least she had things to say now. "It's... I'm Akyuu," she said, tapping her collarbone.

"Well done!" praised Kotohime, and the scary thing was that Akyuu wasn't sure if she was being sarcastic or not.

"And I'm the Child of Miare," the historian went on. "Which means that I have a perfect memory, and memories of past lives. So I remember being Aya, and Anana, and all the others - but only to a point, in relation to the _Chronicles_. I remember, to some extent, interviewing people hundreds of years ago and sitting down and writing the _Chronicles_. But I don't remember much else about life of Aichi or anyone."

"Though if your life any indication, you're probably not missing much," Kotohime pointed out as she wrote, earning a glare she didn't see. "Interesting. So did you always remember the stuff from your past lives? 'cause that sounds kind of hellish to me, being an adult trapped in a body still helpless and crapping itself-"

"It's not nearly that bad!" Akyuu quickly assured her. "The memories were always there, that's true, but a baby can't do much with them. I just developed quickly, and once I could talk I'd mention being the other Children."

"Hmm. So you didn't get to skip toilet training?"

"Let's say that I went through it at an accelerated pace." Akyuu chugged down a mouthful of her watery juice. She wasn't used to talking this much. "At least I don't remember going through puberty nine times," she added.

"True dat." Kotohime squinted as she wrote, then gave up and took off her glasses. "Lifespan! You're sorta immortal with the reincarnation gimmick, except your individual lives kind of suck. You've got what, twenty years or so?"

Akyuu suppressed a shudder, feeling that unpleasant weight on the back of her mind again. All humans, of course, knew deep down that their days were numbered. Death could come at any moment from accident or mishap, and even if it didn't there was a finite number of breaths they would be taking. But knowing just how few days were left, knowing that your life would be a race to complete your destined task before your body failed you, was a burden Akyuu sometimes wished she didn't have to bear.

"Closer to fifteen," she told the princess.

"Yikes."

"And the last ten is spent preparing the rituals for reincarnation, so it's really more like five years," Akyuu clarified, trying to sound matter-of-fact about her impending death.

"And it just gets worse." Kotohime finished jotting stuff down, read over her work, and made a face. "So in conclusion, reincarnation grants you what amounts to déjà vu while you write, at the cost of two-thirds of your lifespan."

The Child of Miare opened her mouth to dispute this, found no words to do so, and sat back, staring down at the table.

"Makes me glad I'm a different kind of immortal," the princess continued. "Now, I've read your book-"

"Really?" Akyuu perked up.

"Yeah, it's nice to have around when I'm on the can," Kotohime said distractedly, missing the face Akyuu made. "And I read your little monologue and how you were wondering if you should keep reincarnating, and if the _Chronicles_ still had a purpose."

"That's, that's right," said Akyuu uneasily.

"Well the answers are no, and yes." Kotohime jabbed her pencil at her interview subject. "The _Chronicles_ are a vital tool in the fight to preserve history, and they help promote youkai literacy, which I support. Smarter youkai are more interesting and challenging youkai to exterminate, and therefore improve the human race through adversity. And I guess if you were curious about Gensokyo's history the books would be helpful too," she added as an afterthought.

"So-"

"But the reincarnating has got to stop," Kotohime barged on. "It's pointless, and it threatens the worth of the _Chronicles_."

Akyuu cut off her earlier objection. "How so?" she asked cautiously.

"Well, look. You got reincarnated into a very interesting time," Kotohime pointed out. "There's all sorts of crazy stuff happening in Gensokyo every year now. I'd say more noteworthy events have happened in the past decade than in the past two centuries. We've had mountains and shrines suddenly appear, the balance of nature thrown out of whack on several occasions, and all sorts of new faces show up. You with me so far?"

"I believe so."

"Well, you said you'll probably kick it in five years."

"Fifteen, act-"

"Which sucks, of course. And it means that you'll be missing out! I'll be doing stuff while you're doing whatever you do between reincarnations-"

"Working for the yama," supplied Akyuu.

"For a hundred years, right." Kotohime gulped down the last of her drink. "And then you'll reincarnate... well, the Akyuu part of you will be dead, I guess, except for in the memories of the next Child of Miare. Which, again, sucks. But can you imagine the backlog the next girl'll have to deal with? Decades of my adventures to go through! And _you're_ working your tail off just keeping your edition up to date. So your successor will have to do _her_ current events _and_ everything that happens after you're gone?"

The young historian sat back, trying to imagine such a workload. She felt a sympathetic migraine just thinking about what her successor would be facing. "There is... some truth to what you say," she admitted.

"Not _some_, a _lot_. I'm a veritable fountain of truthiness. I am _oozing_ veracity here." Kotohime waggled her finger sternly. "I say again, the reincarnating has to stop! It's threatening the worth of the _Gensokyou Chronicles_, and that's practically a crime, so I'd have to arrest you! And because arresting you is _also_ threatening the _Chronicles_, I'd have to arrest me too! And then Gensokyo is plunged into anarchy because the police chief is in her own cells, and then there's riots and fires, and then Reimu has to try to hold the place together in my absence even though she's just a rookie cop, and then someone throws a half-brick and she catches it with her head, and _bam!_" She slammed both hands onto the table, making everyone in the tavern jump. "No more Gensokyo! End of the world because _you_ decided to duck out early instead of living your life like a law-abiding citizen!"

In the shocked silence that followed, Akyuu reflected that it was very difficult to determine if Kotohime was drunk or not. She had just watched the woman down more than a bottle of wine with absolutely no affect on her behavior. This did not mean that Kotohime was acting sober. She was just acting like she did before she'd had a drink.

"I... hadn't considered the risks," Akyuu said diplomatically. "I _had _thought about life without reincarnating. I suppose the extra ten years would give me more time to work on my edition of the _Chronicles_, so that future historians, even if they weren't Children of Miare, would have less_-_"

"Wait,_ ten?_"

"Even if I don't go through with the reincarnation ritual, I'm still going to die relatively soon," Akyuu pointed out, feeling strangely detached from the conversation.

Kotohime gave her a horrified look, then her face set into determination. "Not if I can help it!"

"Your pardon?"

"No, you're going to watch my glorious career firsthand!" Kotohime vowed. "And you're gonna have time to _live_ between the paragraphs, dammit! We're gonna fix your crappy little lifespan!"

"Uh... how?"

"Oh, we've got plenty of options." Kotohime began counting on her fingers. "Magic, get a witch or something to do it. Go to Eientei, see if Eirin has some medicine for you. Get Yukari to fool around with the borders between life and death or some bullcrap like that. You could even go to the Moriya Shrine, see if the local big shot gods can do anything for you, if you feel like dealing with the divine yakuza. Worst-case scenario, when the grim reaper shows up, you _punch her in the throat!_" Kotohime exclaimed, smacking her fist into her palm. "I'll even help you do it. You and me against the world, girlie! Let's storm the gates of hell and _demand_ that the forces of the Netherworld keep their icy claws off of you!"

"What, _now?_"

"Yeah!" Kotohime leapt to her feet, striking a heroic pose. Then a strange look flitted across her face. "Right after I use the restroom!" A few other bargoers chuckled as the princess hurried towards a back room.

-x-

* * *

><p>-4-<p>

Akyuu actually dared to eat one of the little lumps of fried breading left behind on Kotohime's plate while the princess was out. It would be an excellent time to hurry home, she knew, but she was strangely reluctant to abandon Kotohime that way, after all the woman's well-meaning insanity about how to "fix" Akyuu's life. Not that threatening violence against the forces that governed life and death was the correct way to do things, of course, but you had to admire the woman's ardor.

As she washed down the grease with flavorless juice, the tavern's door swung open to admit a septet of young men. She didn't recognize them from her outings to the village, but there was something about their bearing that made Akyuu instinctively nervous. Their swagger wasn't out of place to anyone who'd seen youthful bravado, but the way their gazes swept across the bar and diner – Akyuu could almost watch them sizing up the other men, noting who was openly carrying a weapon, which were too old or drunk to be a threat, or if anyone else seemed to be looking for a fight. It was quite similar to how a youkai would act when entering the territory of a possible rival, or while hunting.

That was not a reassuring thought, Akyuu realized.

The leader's eyes fell on her for a few seconds, and the historian could feel his sudden interest. She tried to sip her drink unconcernedly, but out of the corner of her eye saw the rough-looking young man crack a joke to his comrades to a chorus of chuckles. They sidled up to the bar to make their orders, carefully positioning themselves to keep their distance from her while simultaneously blocking off easy access to the door. Akyuu found herself hoping that Kotohime would get back soon.

No such luck. Picking up their bottles, the men strolled over to where she sat alone in her booth, the flunkies forming a screen while the leader smoothly slid in across from the historian. "Why hello there!" he said brightly.

Akyuu stared at the man, noting his ratty attempt at a goatee, what looked like dried flecks of blood on his jacket, and his eyes, which were more wolfish than those of the tengu Akyuu had met. "I'm sorry, that seat is taken," she said, trying to speak with the gravitas possessed by the Ninth Child of Miare, while being acutely aware that to him she was nothing more than a teenager. "My friend was sitting here, and she will be back soon."

"I'm very glad to hear that," said the man smoothly, to Akyuu's surprise. "It'd be a shame if a pretty little thing like you was left all alone. You look like you could use some company," he went on with a smile that was meant to be charming but instead betrayed an aversion to dentistry.

"As I said, my friend-"

"And maybe she'd like some company too," the man suggested. "I'm sure we could make her very happy." The men behind him snickered.

"Having my seat back would be a great start."

The gang turned around, where Kotohime stood waiting impassively.

The leader's eyes narrowed in recognition, before he gave her a showy bow. "Well, if it isn't the princess who thinks she's a police officer! Or is it the other way around?" He flexed his shoulders, and something inside his jacket went _clink_. "If I had known _you_ were here, I'd have gone to greet you first."

"Kodama," the red-haired woman said with a sleepy smile. "Was it racketeering or battery last time? Whatever it was, I see you still haven't taken my warnings to heart. You gonna move now?"

"So _you_ are this vision of loveliness' companion?" the man asked with theatrical surprise.

Kotohime tilted her head. "Really? I know you harass Chieko every time you come over here, but I didn't take you for a lolicon." That got a mixture of chuckles and muttering from Kodama's underlings. "I notice nobody's moved yet," Kotohime added.

"What if we're happy where we are?" asked Kodama.

Kotohime didn't answer immediately, glancing out of the corner of her eye at the bar. "It's cool, I've got this," she said loudly, making Akyuu wonder who she was talking too. The barkeep certainly seemed reluctant to get involved.

Kodama took a step forward. He was probably trying to loom threateningly, but truth be told he wasn't that much taller than the princess. "You've 'got' this?" he repeated softly. "And what exactly do you think 'this' is?"

"Probably the prelude to a bar fight," Kotohime replied matter-of-factly. There was a cry of protest from the unseen barkeep, and some of the wiser patrons hurriedly began paying their tabs and packing up for home. "I mean you're obviously a group of toughs looking for some 'company,' to use the euphemism, and you zeroed in on poor, defenseless Akyuu here, but _whoops_, here comes the badass policewoman heroine princess to kick ass and take names. And since the closest you chunkheads get to a danmaku duel is throwing bottles at each other, we'd get sucked into a good old-fashioned brawl. Which I'd _like_ to do, goodness knows you lot deserve it, but I sort of promised Akyuu that we'd fight the forces of life and death tonight. So maybe you could flout convention by backing off before I have to start breaking faces?" she suggested, smiling sweetly.

That was enough to give the toughs pause, and some of the brighter flunkies exchanged worried glances. Even Kodama seemed to be reconsidering. But he abruptly broke into a wide smile, and with a quick gesture had his followers move in around Kotohime. "Wouldn't it be more reasonable for _you_ to back off?" he asked. "You are, after all, badly outnumbered-"

"You _know_ that never makes a difference," Kotohime said with a roll of the eyes, the grin never leaving her face. "Come _on_ guys, not tonight."

"Very well then," Kodama said with a neat bow. "We'll leave, and make sure this – Akyuu was it? – gets to bed, tuck her in nice and tight, and-"

He shut up as Kotohime's smile abruptly vanished, her face going completely blank as she stared at him for a few long seconds. "Kodama," she said finally, "do you do any dancing?"

Her adversary chuckled mirthlessly. "Are you offering to teach me?"

"Yep." Kotohime nodded at the tough to her right. "Hisayuki here is about to learn about the Shady Sands Shuffle." While the man blinked in confusion, the princess stood on her tiptoes to look at Akyuu. "You might want to duck in three, two-"

Akyuu dove under the table just as what sounded like a thunderclap exploded in the tavern, accompanied by screams and the sound of breaking glass. When she peeked out of cover a second later she saw that the gangers had all jumped back in surprise. A cloud of gray smoke hung in the air where one had been standing. Hearing groaning, Akyuu turned and saw the missing man sprawled face-down atop a nearby table, his pants in rags and his exposed backside covered in scorch marks and blisters.

In the middle of the cluster of stunned men, Kotohime stood with a smug smile on her face. "Amazing how few people notice when you stick a bomb down their trousers," she commented, before clapping her hands brightly. "So! Now that the situation is defused-"

Kodama flung himself at her with a snarl, a dagger glinting in his upraised arm-

There was a flash of light, the clash of steel-

The attacking thug was flung backward, his dagger tumbling end over end to land point-down into the table between the bomb-blasted ruffian's spread legs, vibrating slightly where it landed.

A man in formal white and red robes lowered his katana and shifted into a combat stance, his legs planted wide and his blade angled up and ready, a bushy ponytail of vibrant purple hair hanging almost to his waist, his clean-shaven face stern and focused. Akyuu recognized him from earlier, but up until this point he'd done nothing but sit at the bar with his drink. The historian was struck by how handsome he was.

"I _told_ you I had everything under control!" whined Kotohime.

The interloping samurai smiled slightly but kept his gaze on the thugs, who for the moment were keeping their distance. "My apologies. Next time I shall let him stab you," he deadpanned, his voice clear and calm.

Kotohime snorted and turned to address the gangers. "Alright, now the mysterious and dashing samurai has entered the battle, so you guys _really_ want to call it a night-"

Kodama yelled a hoarse battlecry as he charged, a second knife in his hand, his pack of troublemakers rushing at his side.

The princess turned to give the tavern's owner an apologetic look. "I tried."

Akyuu just hid under the table, hugging her knees, until the noise stopped.

-x-

* * *

><p>-5-<p>

The battered, bloody, and groaning bodies of Kodama's gang lay in a pile in one corner of _The Princess' Crown_, next to a heap of splintered furniture and broken glass. The bar itself was otherwise empty, save for the two victorious combatants, Akyuu, and the establishment's owner.

"That was as tragically avoidable as it was satisfying," Kotohime declared, poking one of her moaning victims with her _jitte_. "Not to mention good exercise. Thanks for the nonlethal swordplay, by the way," she added with a wink towards her comrade. "Saves on paperwork."

The samurai, perched on a barstool, nodded curtly without looking up from cleaning his blade.

"So what happens now?" asked a hollow-eyed Meiunjishaku, numbly taking in the destruction and calculating the property damage. "Do they go to jail?"

Kotohime sighed with regret. "Wouldn't do much good, at least until I find the key to the cells. Might as well dump them outside and let 'em sleep it off. It'd be too much to hope that they've learned their lesson this time. But feel free to take any money you want off of them. Victor, spoils, etc."

The barkeep wrinkled his nose with distaste at the prospect of rifling through other men's pants, but reluctantly set about trying to earn a profit for the evening.

"Well!" Kotohime sauntered over to where Akyuu sat in her booth, disheveled and dazed. "Something for the history books, eh? Probably a record for the most awesome bar brawl in Gensokyo that didn't involve oni."

"That was, that was," stammered Akyuu.

"Did you like the part where Meira and I went back-to-back?" Kotohime interrupted, indicating the seated samurai. "Couldn't have gone better if we'd practiced! And did you see that wicked sick disarm I did? Ryoichi was all like 'I'mma get you!' And then I caught his sword with my _jitte_-" she flourished the weapon, little more than a metal rod with a single short tine designed for catching oncoming attacks, "-and I was like 'oh no you _dinnit!_' and then he-"

"What about the damages?" Akyuu managed to ask as the bartender began dragging the first victim out the door.

"Oh, that? Even if Kodama's gang was broke, I've got a payment plan," Kotohime said with a wave of her hand. "I make a generous deposit each month to cover both my tab and any sort of ruckus that coincidentally occurs while I'm on the premises. It's a surprisingly common occurrence." She completely missed Meiunjishaku's baleful glare.

"Once a week, usually," supplied Meira.

"Yeah, weird, you know?" Kotohime noticed the clock now hanging slightly off-kilter on the wall. "Well, it's past eleven, so we should probably take off."

"Do you require an escort?" asked Meira, still focused on his sword.

"Nah, it's just an assault on the Netherworld."

The samurai smiled. "Then I wish you luck, and bid you good evening."

"Yeah, g'night," said Kotohime as she guided Akyuu out the door. She paused on the threshold, then turned to yell at the bar's owner. "Was it fish?" she called.

A muscle twitched near the man's temple. "Chicken."

"Aww."

-x-

* * *

><p>-6-<p>

Something was bothering Akyuu as they walked along the mostly abandoned village streets. Surprisingly, it wasn't the fact that she had come dangerously close to having the question of whether or not to reincarnate decided for her. "Meira," she said. "That's an unusual name."

"Yeah, but she's fairly normal as samurai go," Kotohime told her. "Stiffly formal, helluva swordfighter... We go way back. She's not much for conversation, but she's good to have around in case there's trouble that requires a katana or danmaku skills. I think she gets free drinks so they'll have someone to deal with any fairies or youkai attacks. Or in tonight's case, a bunch of mundane rowdies."

It took a few seconds for the realization to set in, but when it did Akyuu stopped in her tracks. "Wait, _she?_"

"Don't worry, it happens to a lot of people," the princess assured her. "Meira's kind of cursed like that. She's got that sort of pretty that attracts women and gay men, but I don't think she's interested in either." Kotohime grinned. "She challenged Reimu to a duel once, you know? And Reimu thought she was being propositioned. And she wasn't complaining, either! And _that's_ why the kickass master swordswoman runs and hides whenever she sees a certain shrine maiden coming by."

Akyuu started walking again, feeling light-headed from more than staying up late. "This has been a strange evening," she murmured.

"And it's just getting started! We've still got to get your lifespan sorted out." Kotohime stopped to look for street signs. "Now what's the quickest way to the Netherworld..."

The historian gave her an incredulous look. "I appreciate your concern, but-"

"Wait, is today Thursday?" Kotohime asked suddenly.

Akyuu blinked in surprise. "For a few more minutes, yes. Why?"

"Damn. I've got an appointment. We'll have to storm the gates of hell later, sorry." She sighed and turned around, walking a relieved Akyuu home. "Well, do you think you can do my entry in the _Gensokyo Chronicles_ justice now?"

"I certainly have a lot more to say about you," Akyuu said with a grin.

"And maybe something _interesting_ to put in your diary?" Kotohime suggested. Akyuu snorted and grabbed the little book out of the woman's hands, wondering how the hell Kotohime managed to snatch it again.

"And have you gained any insights for your own efforts as a historian?" asked Akyuu.

That got a blank look from Kotohime. "Huh?"

"Never mind," said Akyuu with a faint smile.

They stopped in from of the Heida residence, where a lamp had been left on beside the front door. "Nice of your folks," Kotohime noted. "Well, sorry to dump you off like this, but I've got a schedule to keep."

"Thank you for your time," Akyuu said, bowing. "It was a fun evening." She was surprised to find that she meant it. "And a fascinating interview."

"No doubt." Kotohime grinned, her eyes glinting with mischief. "Now you just have to wonder how much, if any, of it was true, and how much was an elaborate deception on my part." Humming to herself, she strolled back into the night, leaving an utterly gobsmacked Akyuu behind.

-x-

* * *

><p>-7-<p>

Kotohime navigated the darkened streets mostly by memory, winding her way through back alleys until she reached an isolated dead-end between a tea house and a second-hand clothing store. She glanced around, confirming that she was alone, and waited patiently for several minutes.

There was a crackling sound.

The alley tingled with energy as lines of static arced and spat around a spot just above the ground. Then with a blast of wind a perfectly-round hole expanded in the air, revealing a brief glimpse of coruscating bands of blue and indigo energy before depositing someone on the ground and disappearing.

The newcomer brushed some dust off her billowing purple robes and looked around curiously, her long red ponytail swaying. Her eyes widened at the sight of Kotohime. "Oh, it's me!"

"And not an evil twin this time, promise," Kotohime assured her as she stepped forward to greet her temporal counterpart.

"So where-"

"The correct question is _when_, and the answer is no, you're off by about three hundred years."

"Dammit!" Kotohime brought out a bronze device and began fiddling with the buttons on it. "So what about-"

"Siegfried's fine," Kotohime assured her, "and he's with Malaika back at Samarqand. But you need to keep moving, you're still being hunted," she warned.

Kotohime nodded curtly. "Righto, then. Anything else I should know before I'm off?"

"The traitor is... well, _you've_ already figured it out," said Kotohime with a sly smile.

"Ha! I _knew_ it!"

"And because I'm from your future, you know that our victory is assured, so just relax and have fun during the final throwdown."

"Not that I'd do anything less." Kotohime waved the wand-like doodad in the air, conjuring up another round gateway through history. "Don't worry, I'll be sure to remember to come back later and fill in the other side of this conversation."

"I knew you'd say that," Kotohime replied, waving. "Good hunting!"

There was another crackling sound, and the second Kotohime disappeared. The princess nodded to herself for a job well done and began strolling home, humming contentedly.

-x-

* * *

><p><strong><em>Author's Notes<em>**

_This one was a _pain_ to write. _

_I thought coming up with a _Perfect Memento _entry for Kotohime would be amusing. But after I typed it up it looked pretty weedy, so I came up with the "interview" idea to fill it out. And predictably _that_ spiraled out of control into a rambling twenty-page dialogue with a few instances of random weirdness and a gratuitous but mostly offscreen fight scene._

_The thing is, I wasn't that interested in writing this story. I really wanted to get to Chapter 5, but before _that_ I had to do Chapter 4, which only exists in a loose sense. And all the time I was working on Chapter 3 I kept getting ideas for Chapters 4 and 5, and even came up with a plot idea I'm eager to turn into a full story for a later chapter. And while the _smart_ thing to do would be to put this piece aside for later, this really is the best place for it, so I was sort of stuck doing it. _

_If this is confusing, you have a good idea of how it felt writing all this._

_About Akyuu's age – she's said to be apparently ten or so for _Perfect Momento_, which came out between _Imperishable Night _and _Subterranean Animism, _and as far as I can tell at least five years have passed since then as of _UFO. _No, I don't have a source. Yes, I'm aware that we're closer to _Ten Desires_ than _UFO. _No, I'm not sure about the rest of the cast's ages. Yes, it was probably a mistake to bring the issue of character ages up in the first place._

"_Nemesex" I'd _like _to claim ownership for, but I Googled it and found out it's already in the Urban Dictionary. In retrospect it's a pretty obvious portmanteau. _


	4. Kotohime and the Great Unmoving Library

_**Kotohime and the Great Unmoving Library**  
><em>

The sparrow cocked its head, peering with one eye, then the other, at the shape slowly crawling through the undergrowth below it. If it hadn't been a near-brainless bird, it might have wondered why a person wearing vivid purple robes would make an attempt at camouflage by weaving sticks and leaves into her red hair, or why someone able to stealthily move through the bushes without so much as rustling the foliage would ruin her silent advance by constantly muttering into the device attached to her headset.

Instead, the sparrow stared at the distraction long enough for a hawk to swoop down and snatch it in its talons.

Kotohime ignored the squawk from above and the brief rain of feathers landing around her. She continued on, breathing deep of the soil's scent as she crawled snakelike on her belly, until she reached the edge of the forest undergrowth that ringed the Scarlet Devil Mansion's outer walls. Once her eyes adjusted to coming out of the shade of the forest into the bright afternoon sun, she slowly brought up her binoculars, peering out at the building while lying prone under a leafy fern.

"In position," she murmured into the slender microphone extending from her earpiece. "I've reached the outer perimeter, and…" She scanned left, noticing two figures in front of the ornate, wrought-iron gateway. One was a tall, athletically-built red-haired woman in green and white, the other a little girl with blue hair and a blue dress. Both were going through slow, purposeful yoga-y motions in near-synchronization, at least until the blue girl lost her balance and fell on her backside. They _looked_ human enough, at least from this distance, but Kotohime knew the woman to be a youkai of no small power, while the girl was quite possibly the strongest fairy in Gensokyo.

"Targets spotted, tagging now," reported the princess as she tapped a button on the side of her binoculars. "Target one is Gatekeeper, Threat Index 3 but not believed to be initially hostile. Target two is Frosty and hopefully a noncombatant. Both appear occupied." She panned up and past them, over the brick wall to the mansion proper, or more specifically one wing of it. "And I _think_ I've spotted the objective. Do we have detailed blueprints yet, Control?" She winced from a sudden burst of static in her earpiece. "Say again, Control?"

"…too early to tell if the import surge was due to recovery efforts," crackled the radio faintly, over the squeals and pops. "...economist based in Tokyo… -oes know is, overall…"

"Agreed, I'm probably getting in range of their scramblers," said Kotohime grimly. "Any final insights before I'm out of contact for good?"

"-ffects include itching, dry mouth, rash… -tile dysfunction. Consult your doctor b-"

Kotohime nodded to herself and stowed her binoculars. "Understood. I'll be attempting my insertion shortly. Don't suppose we have any other assets in play?"

The reply was barely audible, weaving in and out of a haze of interference. "-_shed past each other, you favored_… _if we never meet again. I'm lucky you were here ju_-"

The princess grinned a predatory grin. "On my own, huh? Just the way I like it. Rabbit out."

Kotohime pulled off her headset and tucked it away, taking in the scene in front of the gateway as she pondered her next move. The woman in green had crouched down next to the girl in blue, and it looked like the two of them were having a heart-to-heart. As good a time as any, really. She pushed herself up into a sprinter's ready stance, waiting for the right moment. When it seemed the gatekeeper's attention was firmly in the other direction, Kotohime burst into action.

She flung herself out of the forest in a flat-out run, her sandaled feet thudding on the grass and dirt before clapping against the road ringing the walls. She had to count on being far enough away from the gate proper that hopefully its guardian wouldn't hear her. She reached the red brick wall in no time, skidding to a stop just short of it, then crouched and tensed her legs before springing into the air, front-flipping clear over the eight-foot-wall, her robes flapping and billowing around her.

Kotohime landed in a crouch on the well-kept lawn beyond, next to a flowerbed just a few paces from the road leading from the gate to the mansion's front door. She paused for a moment, catching her breath as she listened for signs of pursuit, before straightening up with a grin on her face.

Well, that was easy.

She turned to look at the other side of the wall, still not quite believing her success. But it looked like the Scarlet Devil Mansion's vaunted gatekeeper had been given the slip. Now all-

"Good morning!" said a cheerful voice with just a hint of a Chinese accent.

Kotohime jumped and spun around, staggering back against the wall with a hand to her heart. The red-haired gatekeeper stood before her, arms folded, resplendent in her uniform – an olive-green dress over tight white leggings, capped with a jaunty beret bearing star-shaped emblem. She was a head taller than Kotohime, but smiled warmly at the princess.

"Goodness, you're fast!" Kotohime finally managed.

"Just because I'm standing on one side of a gate doesn't mean I'm not guarding the other," chided Hong Meiling, still smiling. She walked over to clap the princess on the shoulder good-naturedly. "Good to see you again! And I like the hair shrubs," she added after noticing the leafy twigs stuck into Kotohime's tresses.

"Thanks! They're to compliment my camouflage," the princess replied, gesturing at the tasteful floral patterns woven into her luxurious purple robes.

That gave Meiling pause for a moment, but she shook it off with another smile. "Camouflage, sure. Trying to sneak inside the mansion?"

"That was the plan," Kotohime confessed. "But it seems you're too canny for that."

"You didn't have to, you know," Meiling told her as she led her unexpected guest off the lawn and onto the stone path leading to the front door. "If you'd just asked-"

"So it looks like I'll have to do this the hard way," continued Kotohime. She shook off the gatekeeper's arm and backed away a few steps, then dropped into the combat stance that amateurs adopt before getting clobbered by professional martial artists.

The Chinese gatekeeper girl blinked. "I'm a bit confused now."

"I'm sorry it's come to this, my friend," said Kotohime somberly. "My duty is to infiltrate that mansion, and your duty is to oppose me." She shifted to stand on one leg with her arms in the air, adopting the time-honored position of a crane choking to death on a frog.

"I, uh, wasn't planning on fighting you," the other woman insisted. "I was just about to ask you inside for tea, actually, I'm on break soon and we're allowed to invite guests-"

"A battle is the only way to resolve this," Kotohime went on, her face a mix of sorrow and determination. "I had always dreaded that our destinies would have us come to blows, but now it seems that day has come."

"Uh _huh_…" Meiling gave the princess a dubious look. "Wouldn't you rather try me in a round of danmaku? I think your odds would be better."

"Do not misunderestimate me," Kotohime warned, hopping onto her other leg, weaving her hands through the air in front of her. "I am skilled in the ways of _Tom Kha Kai _and _Miang Kharn_, and am one of the few masters of the dreaded _Kaeng Khiao Wan_."

"I am… unfamiliar with those fighting styles," admitted Meiling. "But I _really_ suggest we settle this with danmaku. Or, you know, we could skip the fighting and I could just knock on the door and-"

Kotohime huffed in exasperation, stood up straight, and balled her hands on her hips. "Come on, we're doing a heartbreaking kung-fu throwdown now! Work with me here!"

"I guess you're really set on this, then." Meiling shrugged and started limbering up, stretching her long, supple legs. "Alright, I'll humor you _this_ time, but only because I'm curious to see what you can do. Now I know you're going to regret this, but remember, you asked for it."

"So it comes to this then," Kotohime intoned, taking up her stance again. "Two dear friends forced by the cruelties of fate to wage desperate battle. We once stood together as allies, but now one must fall. I will not dishonor you by holding back." She narrowed her eyes and clenched her fists. "Are you prepared?"

Meiling let out a deep breath and cracked her knuckles, releasing a brief shower of rainbow-colored sparks as she focused her _qi_ energy. "Don't worry, I'll try to make this quick and relatively painless."

Kotohime gave a fierce grin. "Your fighting spirit does you credit. Now, let the final battle commence!"

-x-

* * *

><p>-2-<p>

"Is she gonna die?" asked Cirno as she hovered at just over head height, looking down with concern on the form draped over Meiling's shoulder.

"Nah, don't worry," the gatekeeper assured the little ice fairy. "I aimed for the soft spots and pulled my punches. She's a little woozy and she might have some bruises, but give her a few hours and she'll be-"

"Is this real life?" slurred Kotohime.

"Afraid so." Meiling gently set her burden down on a soft patch of grass beneath a tree close to the Scarlet Devil Mansion's gate.

"I can't see anything," the princess said thickly.

"That's because your eyes are closed."

"Ohhhh…" Kotohime gave the branches of the tree above her a glassy-eyed stare. "I feel funny."

"I figured you'd rather be numb for an hour than feel what happened to you," Meiling shrugged. "I _hope_ this means you won't challenge me to physical combat in the future."

"I didn't even get to see the fight," Cirno complained, crossing her arms grumpily, her icy wings fluttering with agitation. "I just heard a lot of noise and by the time I flew over the fence you were done!"

"You didn't miss much," Meiling admitted guiltily. "I didn't really want to do it, but she was so _insistent-_"

"Is this going to be forever?" asked Kotohime drunkenly.

Meiling reached down to give her a sympathetic pat. "You'll be back to normal after a good night's sleep, princess."

Kotohime spotted the ice fairy hovering nearby and studied her for a long moment. "You have four Cirnos," she declared.

"Ah… hmm." Meiling gave Cirno a look. "I think I just used up my break, but maybe you could do something for her? Cool her head?"

"Got it!" the fairy said, saluting smartly. "I've got some ice packs back at my house!" And with that she rocketed into the forest, nimbly weaving between the trees as she hurried home.

Meiling shrugged and walked the short distance back to the gate, returning to her post.

Less than a minute later, Kotohime began to sing like a man staggering out of a bar at two in the morning, and the Chinese gatekeeper seriously considered doing something to knock her friend out.

-x-

* * *

><p>-3-<p>

"…and that's why I've come to you," said Kotohime the next day. "My own attempt at gaining entry was, I'm sad to admit, a dismal failure. But you," she went on, "you're renowned for being able to elude the place's guardians and find your way into that library. So I propose an alliance. You help me get where I need to go, and I might be inclined to overlook some of your more minor misdemeanors."

Across the cottage's living room table from her, Marisa Kirisame leaned back in her seat, looking thoughtful as she considered Kotohime's words. "How," asked the magician with eyes and hair of gold, "did you get inside my house? Because last I remember I'd sat down in my favorite chair," she patted the overstuffed armrests for emphasis, "but when I woke up from my nap a few minutes ago, there you were-"

"Alright, alright, I'll even scratch off a few felonies!" the policewoman added in exasperation. "So will you help me or not?"

"-and I'd made sure to lock the doors, and even put up some wards against magical breaking and entering-"

"Oh I'm sorry, I thought I was dealing with the expert burglar here," Kotohime interrupted, attempting to appeal to pride.

"_Borrower_," Marisa corrected with a distracted wave of her hand. "Collector of curios. Part-time treasure hunter. Picker-up of unsupervised trifles. Salvager." She yawned hugely and stretched in her seat, wincing as her joints popped. "I was half-asleep when you were jabbering on, so remind me again why you even want in there anyways?" she asked as she smoothed down the frilly white apron she wore over her black dress. "You don't exactly seem like the bookish type."

The princess folded her arms. "Libraries are repositories of knowledge-"

"That better not have been a pun."

"-and I'm after some specific information that's vital for the case I'm working on," finished Kotohime.

"What case? I hadn't heard of anything odd happening. Relatively speaking, of course."

"A missing person case," replied the policewoman.

Marisa frowned with confusion. "But I haven't heard of anybody going missing either. Did something interesting happen while I was snoozing?"

"No, my subject disappeared several years ago."

"So why are you _just_ _now_… you know what, screw it. You never make any sense whether you explain things or not." Marisa rubbed her nose with a finger. "All that aside, why should I help _you_? You swiped that flask of mine, and-"

"Oh, that? Here." Kotohime reached into one of her drooping sleeves and withdrew a glowing sample of bottled magic. "I'm done with it."

Marisa blinked with surprise before taking the offered vial. "Got bored with it, huh?" she grumbled.

"No, I mean I reverse-engineered it and made a dozen of my own," corrected Kotohime. "I had to improve the formula, though, yours was much too unstable."

The magician stared at her. "You made your own," she said flatly. "And you didn't blow yourself up?"

Kotohime smiled and flourished her hands at her evidently intact body.

"I'm genuinely impressed," said Marisa in complete honesty as she got up and carefully put the thing away.

"I _am_ a part-time magician myself," the other woman chided. "And also a certified ski instructor, but I doubt that'll come into play today. _Anyway_." She leaned forward, serious again. "Are you in or out? You'll get to help a civil authority, have your _lengthy_ criminal record given a good scrub, and I'll even look the other way should you do some more 'borrowing' while we work. You won't get a better offer."

"I dunno, I could just bust into Patchy's place on my own and take what I wanted as usual," Marisa replied as she locked the lid of the reinforced container she'd put the vial in.

"I'll pay you."

"Five hundred, up front," said Marisa almost reflexively.

"Oh-ho?" The princess narrowed her eyes. "Five-fifty."

The witch jerked in surprise, but rallied quickly. "Six hundred."

"_Seven_," hissed Kotohime.

Marisa folded her arms and leaned against the wall, a determined scowl on her face. "Seven hundred and forty."

"Seven-fifty."

"Seven-eighty."

"_Nine_ hundred," the princess declared with a savage grin, sending Marisa reeling. "Going once? Twice?" When the shocked witch said nothing, Kotohime smacked a fist against her open palm in triumph, then sat back smugly. "Another victory," she drawled.

"Yeah, I just can't win a bidding war with you," said Marisa faintly, still not totally believing what'd just happened. "So, uh…?"

"Right, right." The princess withdrew a coinpurse and started counting, while Marisa thought about what she'd just agreed to and whether she should back out while there was still time.

On the one hand, Kotohime.

But on the other hand... well, Marisa didn't have anything else planned this afternoon, it'd been a while since she visited the Scarlet Devil Mansion's library, and introducing the loony princess to Patchouli in full library defense mode might be good for a laugh. Really, it was either go along with this or see what Reimu was up to, and the shrine maiden was still grumpy about the scorch mark in her yard that refused to come out.

Or – Marisa suppressed a shudder – she could stay home and do housework.

The magician leaned forward to scoop up the money, the blonde braid dangling in front of her left shoulder swaying as she gave her unwanted visitor an uncharacteristically serious look. "If I do this, you're following my lead, you got it?"

"As the resident expert at library infiltration, I would of course defer to your experience," said Kotohime politely as she put away her purse.

"Oh, it's not just a matter of getting in," Marisa said with a dangerous smirk. "That's _easy_. It's _surviving_ once you're inside that's tricky. Ol' Patchy's got her place wrapped in wards and defenses tighter than an oni's hand around a beer bottle, true. But she saves her big guns for a proper battle – don't suppose you've ever seen her 'Royal Flare?' That thing could win wars all on its own, and she's got books full of spells that're just as lethal. Of course, that's all at the _end_ of our little adventure."

"There's more to it than that?" breathed Kotohime, leaning forward.

"You betcha. Ever been inside a magical library?" The other woman shook her head, and Marisa grinned maliciously. "Well you're in for a treat. First thing is that her library doesn't obey your 'laws' of time and space. It's _ginormous_, at least two – _ten_ times the size of the Scarlet Devil Mansion itself. It's got aisles that nobody's been down for a hundred years, more miles of shelves than you could wrap around the moon. Unless you know the place like the back of your hand, you're in danger of getting lost somewhere and starving to death between piles dusty old books. You know how Patchy never leaves the place? They say even _she_ can't find her way out anymore."

Kotohime had the wide-eyed look of a ten-year-old listening to a particularly good ghost story.

"And all that's the _easy_ stuff," Marisa went on, starting to enjoy herself. "The books themselves – oh, they're more dangerous than most youkai! Books with brains, books with an appetite, books that _need_ to be read. Just flipping through some of them can drive you mad, and those are the _good_ ones, because others will trap you into reading them for the rest of your life, or snap you up-" she clapped her hands together like a crocodile's jaw, making Kotohime jump "-just like that! And because so many of the books are magical, the fabric of reality gets sort of _stretched_ in there. Demons and spirits haunt the place, and even _worse_ things lurk in the lesser-traveled aisles, stuff I can't even identify and never want to." She shuddered melodramatically, trying to keep a smile off her face. "Frankly it'll be a miracle if we even _see_ Patchy. So, are you still sure you wanna do this?"

There was a moment's pause, then Kotohime positively squealed in excitement, hopping up and down in her seat like she needed a restroom break. "Let's go let's go let's _go!_" she babbled excitedly.

Marisa coughed to cover her surprise. That was not the reaction she'd been expecting.

-x-

* * *

><p>-4-<p>

They left an hour later, the most unlikely of allies – a brash young magician only tolerated because she solved slightly more trouble than she caused, and Gensokyo's princess and chief of police, an exemplar of law and order in a never-ending crusade for justice. Flying low over the Misty Lake to hide their coming in the reflected glare of the afternoon sun, the duo approached the-

"What the hell are you doing?"

"Narrating," Kotohime replied.

"Maybe try doing it _silently?_" suggested Marisa.

"I'm hoping for some constructive criticism," the princess said as they swiftly flew on, just above the water's shining surface. "I know my memoirs are going to be a bestseller one day, but I'd prefer for it to be due to more than my celebrity status."

The witch just snorted and lowered her head slightly, the white lace under the brim of her trademark and stereotypical black pointy hat fluttering in the breeze. She muttered a curse as she dipped too low and her dangling boots drew an arc of water after hitting the lake's surface.

Kotohime noticed the mishap. "Is the broomstick that important?"

"Abso-friggin'-lutely," Marisa assured her.

"It just seems that flying without it would be easier, not to mention more comfortable."

The witch sneered with disdain and tightened her grip on her broom. "Maybe, but I've got an image to maintain, y'know. Anyways, magic ain't about 'easy' or 'comfortable,' Your Highness. At least if you're a self-taught human instead of some sort of youkai who gets handed her powers on a silver platter. To say nothing of shrine maidens."

Kotohime gave her a sidelong glance. "'Self-taught,' eh? Only, I remember you _used_ to have a magical mentor who-"

"Pull up."

"Huh?"

Marisa was already gaining altitude, just missing a few branches as she ascended enough to glide over the top of the forest, while her companion flew straight into the woods like a purple cruise missile.

A moment later Kotohime burst out of the canopy to join her, a few leaves in her red hair. "You're gonna need better reflexes than that to survive what's ahead," Marisa warned. "Sure you don't wanna turn back now?"

"Of course not," the other woman scoffed. "Though I do think we should take a moment to rest and prepare ourselves for what is to come."

"Right," Marisa replied with a roll of her eyes.

They hovered for a minute over the brief stretch of forest between them and the manor's outer walls, taking in the scenery. It was, Kotohime reflected, a pretty disappointing building. A vampire's abode should be an intimidating sprawl of towering gothic spires, all dark stone and gaping black windows staring like empty eye sockets at any foolish interlopers, a nightmare fortress perpetually cloaked in shadow.

The Scarlet Devil Mansion, on the other hand, was a tasteless red color in the brilliant afternoon sunlight, squarish and a bit squat. There _was_ a clock tower, but it wasn't much taller than the rest of the structure, and what few windows there were had been made with stained glass – red, of course. Everyone assured her it was more interesting on the inside. Kotohime hoped so.

"What about the gatekeeper?" she asked Marisa. "She's impossible to sneak past, I've tried."

"Leave that to me," the witch said confidently. "I've got a few tricks for getting in right under her nose." She kicked her legs out needlessly and shot forward, Kotohime close behind as they advanced on the gate.

As expected, a certain youkai was standing guard in front of it, and looked up warily as they approached. "Good afternoon," she said with a polite nod.

"Heya China, what up?" Marisa replied with a rakish grin.

Meiling frowned at the nickname before sighing with resignation. "Well, _you_ now. I assume you're here for the usual reason?"

"Kinda sorta. I'm paying Patchy a visit, but it wasn't my idea this time."

"Oh?" The gatekeeper peered at Kotohime, who was trying to stay inconspicuous behind Marisa. "Is that what you were doing yesterday? At least before you insisted on our, ah, 'battle.'"

"Don't think that was the last time we'll come to blows," the princess warned as she drifted into full view. "We're going to have to arrange another duel since our first sparring session was botched. I mean, I _was_ expecting a countdown before we began, so you caught me off-guard. Otherwise I would have won easily."

"Oh, of course," Meiling agreed, nodding sagely. "Plus – and I didn't want to say this yesterday – I thought you looked a bit sickly. A touch of the flu, maybe?"

"That's the observational skill you'd expect from a gatekeeper," Kotohime said with a smile. "Yes, I was definitively off my game last afternoon. I'm sure our rematch will be more interesting. But alas, today's not a good time, I have urgent business inside."

"_Anyway_," interrupted Marisa, "we'll be heading in now."

"Fine, fine," Meiling said, waving them on. "Just try not to make too much of a mess, Sakuya's overworked already, poor girl."

"Hey," the witch grinned, "it's me."

The Chinese youkai rolled her eyes and turned away, resuming her vigil beside the iron gate. Marisa and Kotohime easily bobbed over and past it.

"Impressive," Kotohime admitted once they were out of hearing range.

"What, just saying hi and going on in?" asked Marisa.

"Yeah, the mind trick," the princess agreed. "I didn't know you were a telepath, but that was a decent minor compulsion to make her let us pass. Not many people take the time to develop their mental powers to do stuff like that, even if they have the natural talent to begin with. Of course," she went on, "as a vampire thrall she would have little to no mental defenses left after a lifetime spent serving her mistress, but even so -"

"Okay, you know what?" the witch cut in. "We'd better be quiet now, or else Patchy will hear us coming."

"Really?"

"Oh yes. She's got incredible ears. All librarians do, it's why they tell people to be quiet all the time."

"Wow…"

-x-

* * *

><p>-5-<p>

There was a front hall, which, while not the imposingly cavernous cathedral-like entryway Kotohime had been hoping for, was at least suitably large and boasted an acceptable chandelier,even if it could have used more windows and maybe an animate suit of armor or two. Marisa paused just long enough to carefully shut the door behind them before urging her companion on.

"No one to greet us?" asked Kotohime, looking around in surprise.

Marisa gave her an annoyed glance. "It's _daytime_, so the vamps are still sleeping, hopefully, and the fairy staff is slacking somewhere. Now shut up and hurry up, I don't want to get caught by Miss Crazy Knives."

An open doorway led from the entry hall straight into a less impressive and rather monotonous corridor of plush red carpet and tall golden candelabras. Kotohime noticed smudges and cobwebs on some of the metalwork and concluded that the manor's fairy maids were living down to their reputation. And then…

"Oooh!"

The hall led into a great round chamber, a lobby Kotohime supposed, ringed with foreboding wooden doors, each flanked by thin pillars and capped with those classy narrow faux-roofs. The floor was a highly-polished black stone, though the princess could just make out thin reddish veins running through the rock, giving it a disturbingly organic appearance. An intricate and arcane geometric design was carved into the floor's center, around a wide circular patch of floor that glowed a solid pinkish-white. And above it all was a dome decorated with a breathtaking mural, depicting a sky roiling in a tempest, all done in shades of red.

"Yeah, it's a nice room," Marisa said disinterestedly. "Now, which w-" she winced at a flash of white light and whirled around, then scowled at the other girl. "_What_ are you doing?"

Kotohime lowered her camera. "Who, me?"

The witch bit back a few choice epithets. "Just… try not to annoy me, I'm trying to figure out where to go." She rummaged through a pouch on her belt and withdrew what looked like an arcane variant of an infant's mobile. Once the tangled mess unfolded, Kotohime saw feathers, bits of broken jewelry, a mushroom, and other oddities twirling and spinning on the end of their strings.

"What's that?" the princess asked.

"Think of it like a compass," Marisa answered, watching the device intently. "Also, shut up so I can concentrate."

"I thought you'd been to the library hundreds of times?" Kotohime asked suspiciously.

"Dozens," replied Marisa. "And that doesn't mean it's easy to get back. You realize this whole place is kind of weird, right? Things move around, the head maid uses her powers over time to make it bigger-"

Kotohime tilted her head. "How does _that_ work?"

"Don't ask _me_, probably some crap about space-time," Marisa said dismissively. "And what did I say about shutting up?"

The princess turned away to tap her foot impatiently, studying the ceiling mural for a few seconds before looking around at the rest of the room. "How about that way?" she suggested, pointing at what looked to be an infrequently-used door, dusty and somehow managing to appear tucked away in the corner of a round room. "You said that the librarian was a shut-in, so-"

"Which way? Oh _hell_ no," Marisa said when she saw where Kotohime was pointing. "_That_ goes to the basements."

"Ah. Where the younger Scarlet lairs."

"And if we're lucky she'll stay there." Marisa abruptly stuffed her trinket back into her bag. "Alright, we need to go-"

She was interrupted when one of the lobby doors swung open, admitting a pair of diminutive fairies dressed like French maids. They were chattering excitedly until they noticed the two intruders staring at them, then drew to a stop, hovering with their gossamer wings flapping as they stared back with a mixture of puzzlement and fear.

"Ah! Excuse me, ladies," Kotohime said with a gentle smile. "Which way to the library?"

The two supernatural servants exchanged a glance before one of them pointed off at a door to their right.

"Thank you very much!" said the princess, bowing. "We'll get out of your way, then." She and Marisa opened the indicated door, stepped through, shut it behind them, and took off down the next stretch of corridor. "That _was_ the way you determined we should go, right?" she asked.

"Oh yes. Absolutely."

-x-

* * *

><p>-6-<p>

Within a minute, Kotohime was convinced that the Scarlet Devil Mansion had only one short hallway, but the powers of its inhabitants allowed that stretch of corridor to be duplicated and used throughout the sprawling manor. As she and Marisa flew along, the princess took note of how the same cobweb kept reappearing on one of the candelabras on the left, and a suspicious stain in the deep red carpet would pass under them every thirteen seconds.

The journey couldn't have taken more than a few minutes, but after the rotunda room, traveling along those boring hallways felt like an eternity to Kotohime. She was relieved when Marisa held up a hand to slow them down as the hall finally ended.

"This it?" asked Kotohime, staring up at the double doors in disappointment. She was expecting a portal at least ten feet high, carved with scenes depicting great moments in the history of literacy, flanked by statues of writers or muses or gods of pen and ink. Instead she concluded that the mansion's contractors had bought their doors in bulk somewhere at a retail outlet.

The witch gave her a sidelong glance. "What, you can't tell?" She quirked an eyebrow at Kotohime's blank stare. "I mean, can't you feel the magic? Since you _are_ a magician, yeah?"

"Oh, of course," the other woman said quickly. "I just wanted confirmation."

Marisa snorted and dismounted, resting her broom on her shoulder. "Come on," she said as she pushed the door open, Kotohime hurrying to follow. And then the princess had to stop and gawk again.

It was like stepping outside, only instead of the dome of the sky overhead, it was the dome of a building's roof, a rotunda with gargantuan windows between alabaster arches and marble vaults, interspaced with colossal statues from the world's great mythological epics, all hanging high above in defiance of gravity. And instead of distant hills or forests forming the boundaries of vision, it was distant walls covered with books, hundreds of thousands of millions of books on shelves dozens of stories high, terraces and ziggurats of bookshelves with stairways zig-zagging up and down from each level of walkway. Kotohime could have sworn that she saw wisps of cloud caught in the dome high overhead, and that the scenery in the distance had a distinct bluish tinge to it. It was like looking upon a city, or a vast necropolis, where every avenue or passage was devoted to shelving space.

"Oh, she's remodeled again," said Marisa, sparing the scenery only a brief glance.

"You don't say?" answered Kotohime faintly, still taking it all in. The space was actually _too big_ for their voices to echo.

"Yeah, last time she had all the shelves floating in neat little rows in an infinite space," the witch replied. "And before that she'd gone back to the classic 'endlessly repeating generic library shelves' getup. I swear, between her and Sakuya I doubt the mansion layout lasts more than a few days. It's almost like they don't _want_ me to learn my way around the place."

They marched away from the deceptively plain door they had entered through, stepping out onto an open stretch of floor large enough to easily accommodate the entire Scarlet Devil Mansion. Glancing down, Kotohime saw that what she'd taken for black stone was studded with countless tiny glowing lights, forming a convincing approximation of the night sky, complete with drifting wisps of indigo clouds. It was like walking through space.

"_Awesome_," the policewoman said with a huge smile.

"Yeah, probably." Marisa came to a stop before the plaza's only landmark, a great bronze obelisk covered with words and arrows pointing the way to the library's sections and attractions. "So where to start?" she mused while staring up at the directory. "New arrivals? The spellbooks? Or hit the comics section and see what Patchy and Remi are reading?"

"This place has a _pool?"_ the princess squealed when she saw where one arrow was pointing.

"Well it used to be a rocket launch pad, but I think everyone prefers it as an 'indoor sea,'" Marisa explained. "There's also a few arcane laboratories, a kitchen, a printing press, a paper mill, I think an inn that nobody's seen for years..."

"It's almost beyond belief," murmured Kotohime. "Aside from the fact that I'm witnessing it and can accept such a place's existence as part of the magical world we live in, of course." She spun around slowly, taking it all in. "I'm going to get a library like this," she decided.

"And I can't _wait_ to see what you put in it." Marisa cocked her head. "So what were you looking for, anyway? Or are you just sightseeing?"

The princess blinked and shook herself. "Oh, of course not, I'm on a mission. So…" She took a few moments to study the directory, then nodded to herself and pointed off at the arched entrance to a warren of bookshelves just off the ground floor. "Thatta way."

Marisa checked the sign. "Hmm. Bestiaries, Theurgy, or Dimensional Studies, I wonder which you're getting into." When Kotohime didn't answer and instead launched into the air, Marisa grumbled and rushed to take the lead. "_I'm_ supposed to be guiding _you_, remember."

"Oh that's right, princess-eating books and magical traps and beasties, yeah?"

"Yeah." The witch made a big show of looking around for danger. "Okay, I reckon it's safe enough to make a go at it, but stay alert."

-x-

* * *

><p>-7-<p>

The aisles between the shelves had the dimensions of the sanctuaries of grand cathedrals. Kotohime estimated there were at least six stories' worth of books beneath the vaulted ceiling separating them from the level above, and the shelves themselves went on for what felt like a quarter of a mile. But although the scale was grandiose, the furnishings themselves were rather plain – no murals decorated the ceiling, no carvings or embellishments broke the simple lines of the wooden shelves. Tables and chairs sat in the center of each aisle's stretch of solid red carpet, surrounded by piles and teetering towers of books left behind by the place's resident bibliophile.

At least the light sources were interesting, glass spheres containing what looked like miniature suns, scattered randomly about to hang at different heights by silver chains. Marisa and Kotohime had to dodge and weave their way along each aisle to miss either the light fixtures if they flew high or the book piles if they stayed low.

"So this one's… yeah, this aisle's all about dragons, normal and Western," Marisa explained, hovering on her broomstick halfway between the floor and ceiling. "If we take a left we'll end up in the necromancy section, which is predictably haunted-"

"Not what I'm looking for," Kotohime said while paging through the first thing she'd grabbed, a dusty tome bound in scaly red hide.

"Or if we go right there's a couple of shelves all about runes and crap."

"Not what I'm looking for either."

The witch's eyes narrowed. "Or you could just _tell_ me what we're looking for and make this a lot easier."

"The details of an investigation are confidential until the case is solved," replied the policewoman in a sing-song voice, still not taking her eyes off her book. "Huh. Never heard of a 'wyvern' before." She absent-mindedly stuffed the text into a bag on her belt and reached for a replacement. "Aww, she didn't translate this one. Hey, is this in German or Danish?"

"Close: it's a Swedish translation of a French text."

Both intruders whirled at the sound of the girl's voice, Kotohime almost dropping her book in surprise, Marisa reflexively bringing up a blast of magic before she saw who it was.

A short, slender young woman floated nearby, arms crossed, her face bearing a faint, smug smile. Her long, straight red hair contrasted vividly with the sober black dress she was wearing, a professional-looking outfit with white sleeves and a red tie. Her small, bat-like wings flapped slowly as she hovered, and oddly enough she had another even smaller set emerging from just over her ears.

"The original author was executed for sorcery in 922," the girl continued, "but the first edition was smuggled out of Rheims by a traveling occultist who fled to Scandinavia. Sometime after 970 a monk got his hands on it, translated it, burned the original, and hid his edition in a cemetery in Småland. I believe the Mistress Scarlet acquired it from a private collection prior to moving to Gensokyo."

Marisa rallied first, flashing her most charming smile. "Heya, Koa, what's happening?"

The newcomer rolled her eyes, grinning slightly. "Oh, the usual. Books need shelving, the mistress needs tea, intruders in the library…"

"Oh really? Well, we'll let you know if we see any," Marisa assured her.

The twice-winged girl gave the witch a hurt look. "What am I, a fairy?"

"It was worth a shot," said Marisa breezily.

"So is there a translated version of this available?" Kotohime asked, waving the book she was holding. When the newcomer shook her head, the princess made a disappointed sound and went back to looking at the pictures.

Marisa grinned and gave a 'what can I say, she's a weird one' shrug. "So," she asked aloud, "are you gonna leave us be, or do I have to resort to threats?"

"But if you start blasting, you'll certainly cause enough chaos to get the mistress' attention," the other girl chided. She stopped wagging her finger and stroked her chin thoughtfully. "I haven't decided yet," she declared loftily. "I've got stuff I could be doing, so maybe I never saw you. Maybe I'll rush off and warn Miss Patchouli immediately. Maybe I'll give you guys a few minutes' head start. We'll see what I feel like." With that, she drifted down the aisle away from them unconcernedly with her nose in the air and her two sets of wings barely flapping.

Marisa's smile faded and she cursed under her breath. "We oughta hurry it up," she advised her companion. "I can't read her moods yet, but there's a decent chance we're about to get busted."

"That should be exciting," said Kotohime as she jammed her book upside-down into a random gap on the shelf. "Who was that, anyway?" she asked as she and Marisa flew on aimlessly. "Some sort of bat youkai?"

"Huh? No, that was Ko_akuma_," Marisa explained. "I dunno if she lives here or is just a hired assistant or what, but she's a devil, not a youkai."

The princess' hair snapped forward as she jerked to a sudden stop. "_What?_"

Marisa tilted her head in puzzlement. "You got a problem with demons?"

Kotohime looked about frantically before spotting Koakuma, who had paused near the end of the aisle at the sound of shouting. Kotohime flung an arm out and pointed at her. "You! Stop right there!"

Faced with a princess barreling at her at top speed, Koakuma did no such thing. Instead the little devil yelped and swiftly darted around a corner.

"After her!" Kotohime ordered while charging along in hot pursuit. Marisa shook her head in amazement, kicked her heels for style points, and hurried to follow.

"So why are we chasing her?" she yelled.

"She's wanted for questioning!" the princess shouted back, looking over her shoulder at Marisa for a second and therefore coming perilously close to colliding with a light fixture. "I have a war- oh, wait."

Kotohime abruptly came to a complete stop, forcing Marisa to swerve wildly, then serenely grabbed the witch's shoulder as she passed and swung herself onto the broomstick behind Marisa, all in one smooth motion.

"The _hell?_" Marisa yelped.

"Keep after her, I've got to write the warrant!" Marisa heard rustling behind her, then felt the unwelcome sensation of someone using her back as a desk. "How many 'r's in 'warrant?'" asked Kotohime.

"Now I know I'm not one to be making accusations," the witch replied, even as she took a tight corner to pursue an increasingly-frantic Koakuma. "But I can't tell if you're crazy or just stupid."

"Not what I asked, but thanks for your input." Kotohime scribbled some more. "Damn, do you have any wax on you? I brought my signet but forgot-" She shouted her displeasure as Marisa went evasive, ducking and weaving through a spread of glowing white projectiles that streaked past to fizzle against distant shelves.

"Okay, now it's an official danmaku duel!" the witch laughed. "This'll be over quickly," she promised, raising a hand-

Which was immediately slapped down by Kotohime. "No blasting!" the policewoman ordered. "She has to be able to answer questions afterward!"

Marisa risked a second to give her companion an incredulous look. "Oh come on, it's not like I'm gonna Spark her or anything – okay, maybe I was gonna Spark her a _little_-"

"Dammit Kirisame, you're out of control! I ought to take your badge right now-"

Koakuma swerved left to dart into another aisle, and Marisa brought her broomstick in a tight loop to continue the chase. "You never gave me a badge!" she laughed.

"Well after I interrogate her we can go home, I'll give you a badge, and then I'll confiscate it while chewing you out for-" There was a tearing sound, and a moment's quiet. "I poked a hole in the parchment," said Kotohime sheepishly.

"Oh, get off." Marisa executed a tight barrel roll to flick Kotohime from her broom. The princess tumbled in mid-air for only a moment before catching up, flying close by Marisa's side, her robes fluttering and her red hair streaming. Kotohime whooped and laughed as they danced across the sky, zig-zagging to dodge both the hanging lights and Koakuma's frantic spreads of luminous energy bullets.

The defensive flying wasn't really the hard part – though the assistant librarian clearly had some magical talent, she was just short of qualifying for Gensokyo's bottom tier of famous danmaku combatants. The tricky thing was chasing her. Once the demoness reached the end of a corridor between the shelves, she'd dart around the corner, giving her pursuers only a split-second to see which new aisle she'd flown into.

"This would be a _lot_ easier if you'd just let me shoot her!" yelled Marisa as the chase entered a new stretch of the library. She wasn't sure _which_ stretch, she'd lost track of where they were flying several minutes ago.

The little devil had stopped firing back at them, at least, and was flying away at full speed, only occasionally glancing back to check that she was still being followed. That was enough to make Marisa suspicious, caution that was justified when silvery sparks suddenly burst from Koakuma's hands, streaking not towards her two pursuers, but the shelves at their sides.

Shelves containing big, hefty books. Books that were secured by heavy golden chains.

There was the ear-hammering sound of dozens of pieces of metal breaking in unison, and then Marisa and Kotohime cried out as every book on the shelves around them burst into the air like well-read shrapnel. Marisa threw up a hand to keep a weighty text from slamming into her face, the impact forcing her arm back against her temple hard enough to leave a bruise and crush the brim of her hat, while another two books hit her broomstick from different directions and nearly sent her into a tailspin. Behind her she could hear Kotohime making her own cries of distress.

"That's a flagrant violation of the unofficially-sanctioned but heavily-enforced spellcard rules!" the princess called. "I think! But it hurt! Officer Kirisame, you are now authorized to use force in the apprehension of... well _that's_ different."

Marisa looked back to see what had surprised Kotohime and had to gape for a moment. What could only be called a flock of atlas-sized books was pursuing them down the aisle, their spines pointed away while their covers snapped like jaws, gleaming teeth and drooling tongues visible between their covers instead of pages.

Kotohime shot the witch a curious glance. "I thought you were making that stuff up?"

"So did I!" Marisa had to duck as a book lunged at her, knocking off her precious hat. Fortunately her companion swooped down to catch it, even while a trio of ravenous hardbacks snapped at her heels.

"Here ya go," said Kotohime as she handed the bonnet back. She rolled over on her back and looked towards her feet like a swimmer floating down a river, studying the books trying to eat her with unconcerned interest. "Do you think my bombs'll work, or do you want to try something?"

The young woman at her side just smirked. Marisa swung her broom around and swiveled in her seat until she was perched on it as casually as she might sit on a park bench. Still flying backward, she held up a hand that shone with magical power, then shouted as she unleashed a torrent of star-shaped danmaku – not in the sense that each blast appeared like a tiny sun, but actual five-pointed stars, a dazzling stream of multicolored magic.

As Kotohime watched the pursuing pack of rogue books flew head-on into the interlocking spirals of arcane power, and though each individual impact had little effect, Marisa had filled the aisle between the shelves with _hundreds_ of bullets of energy. By the time the gaudy display of Marisa's formidable danmaku skills was over, every inch of the bookcases around them were blackened and scorched, while there was a pile of very battered books lying on what was left of the carpet.

The princess and the witch slowly came to a stop, surveying the scene while hovering in the air. "So which of your spell cards was that?" asked Kotohime.

"Spell card? Puh-_leaze_," scoffed Marisa. "I've exterminated about a million youkai and made goddesses cry for their mommies. I'm not about to break out the big guns for a bunch of _books_. That was just a warm-up." She got back in her broomstick's saddle, so to speak, and glanced around to find a distinct lack of Koakuma. "Clever girl. Distracted us with a fight so she could scamper off."

"But not clever enough to restrain from checking to see if her trap worked," said Kotohime, pointing down the aisle. A red-haired, winged head was poking around the corner, but once Koakuma saw them staring she disappeared with a yelp. Without another word, Marisa and Kotohime launched to continue the chase, rounding the corner tightly-

And came to a dead stop.

The fiendish assistant librarian was smiling impishly at them from behind a towering figure. Taking up most of an aisle was an apparition seemingly made from a cloud of amethyst shards, as though a colossal crystal had exploded but maintained a humanoid shape. There wasn't much in the way of detail, but Kotohime guessed that the vision was female, and decided that it would be much more intimidating if it wasn't wearing what looked to be a giant-sized nightcap.

The colossal woman stared at the pair of intruders with a pair of gemstones the size of washtubs, set apart from the rest of her body by their fiery purple glow. "This is not unexpected, albeit still irritating" she said, and Kotohime was immediately disappointed. A spectacle like that deserved a deep, powerful voice, the voice of an imperious queen or prideful goddess. Instead the purple person spoke in a low monotone, the words rushed out without any real sense of pacing, with only a bit of reverb to make things interesting.

Marisa hopped off her broom to stand fearlessly before the figure, beaming up at it with her arms spread wide. "Patchy, baby! Long time no see! You're looking a bit different – have you lost weight?"

"Our lack of contact is entirely by design, I assure you," the figure deadpanned. "I have been most busy as of late, and with you around-"

"Patchouli Knowledge is a purple gemstone giant?" interrupted Kotohime, looking upon the shining apparition with keen interest.

The crystal eyes managed to glower at the woman hovering behind Marisa. "Who is this?" Patchouli asked the witch.

Marisa shrugged. "Just some crazy-"

"Princess Kotohime of Gensokyo," the red-haired woman said with a formal mid-air bow, "Dowager Countess of the Youkai Mountain, 27th level Magic Knight, and inventor of the Belching Oni cocktail. I also solve crimes."

The two glowing gemstones dimmed for a moment in an approximation of a blink, then shifted to stare at Marisa in silence.

"_And_ she's a fully qualified ski instructor," the witch added. "Anyway, we're-"

"Here to raid my collection, most likely," Patchouli interrupted. "And, true to form, you decided to cause some havoc along the way by blowing up a stretch of my library and chasing my assistant like an over-excited dog."

"Yeah, about that," said Kotohime. "Can we borrow her for a minute?"

"No," replied Patchouli flatly. The sparkling purple titan raised an arm to point skyward, a bright vortex of whirling energy forming over her head. "I am in the middle of a particularly difficult translation, and have no time for interruptions. I will, however, take this opportunity to further refine some experimental spellwork, so your unwelcome intrusion need not be totally without value. I look forward to examining the data later."

The giantess stepped back as something slipped out of the nimbus of magic, something huge and sinuous that landed heavily on the floor with a resounding _thud_. It looked to be some sort of dragon by Kotohime's estimation, though obviously not a natural, flesh-and-blood specimen. This creature seemed to be made of countless fine metal scales, with a bright blue-white light shining out through the gaps between. Icicles hung from its mouth and chin like whiskers, and its eyes blazed like white dwarf stars. Heavy vapor billowed from the dragon's hide, leaving patches of frost on the carpet beneath it and giving Kotohime goosebumps just from being near the beast. The thing smelled of wet metal and winter mornings, though the princess thought she detected just a hint of peppermint.

Marisa slowly, casually began backing away. "Impressive. Let's see, that's a variant of elemental water for the core of pure cold energy, and you've worked metal into-" She was interrupted by a flash of light as Kotohime took another picture.

"Neat!" gushed the princess. "So what does it do?"

"I have great expectations concerning this construct's ability to combat unwanted and uninvited guests," said the giant purple Patchouli. "I had not planned to set it against an annoyance of Marisa's caliber so early, but am prepared to make the most of the situation. Good afternoon." All at once the hundreds of shards of amethyst that made up the figure's body tumbled out of the sky, disappearing just before they would have hit the floor. Somewhere along the line Koakuma had run off too, leaving Kotohime and Marisa alone with the creature Patchouli had summoned.

The dragon ignored what was happening behind it, instead focusing its leonine gaze on the duo of intruders. The magical beast made a low grumbling sound that reverberated in Kotohime's belly as it took a prowling step forward.

The princess looked over at Marisa. "So does _this_ count as danmaku?"

"Well _I_ certainly don't plan on getting hit by it," the witch replied, rising into the air and getting seated on her broom.

"But on the bright side, that's one dragon that won't be breathing fire at us," Kotohime noted.

The whole library seemed to shake as the dragon roared, sending books tumbling from the shelves around it. Then it took a deep breath and loosed a jet of white-hot flames at Kotohime and Marisa.

The pair was already moving. There was something in the creature's roar that spurred the body into running like hell, though of course in the girls' case they took flight. The dragon swiftly followed, lunging skyward and rapidly weaving through the air like a snake long enough to encircle a house, its short legs tucked in close against its belly, a corona of freezing air in its wake.

"So fire too, huh?" shouted Kotohime over another deafening roar. "That's pretty impressive, working three elements together like that, especially if two are mutually opposed."

"Oh absolutely," agreed Marisa, her knuckles white from their grip on her broomstick. She and Kotohime rounded the corner so fast they barely avoided scraping against the far shelves.

The dragon navigated the turn with shocking ease, somehow gaining on them. It snapped its head forward, loosing a trio of sputtering fireballs that singed Kotohime's hair as they streaked past to detonate against the walls and floor of the aisle ahead, sending books flying every direction. The heat was pretty uncomfortable, and Kotohime was relieved the feel a cool breeze at her back, until she remembered what was causing it.

She glanced over her shoulder at the rimy iron teeth coming slowly but inexorably closer. "Both fire and cold weaken metal, right?" she thought aloud. "So its 'skin' should be pretty vulnerable to, say, high explosives-"

Marisa did a tight roll, sending a shower of magical missiles curving back to detonate against the composite dragon's steel hide, blasting off clouds of scales from its flanks. The beast bellowed in response, the sound a combination of tearing metal and a roaring furnace, but the holes in its steel coat didn't seem to negatively impact it.

"So if I keep this up, I'll get it down to just a fire and frost creature before it fries us," the witch declared.

"I have devised a cunning strategy!" announced Kotohime triumphantly. "You must chip away at the monster's armor until you reveal its vulnerable icy core. Then you must use a spell to reflect the dragon's fireballs back into it, where the reaction of elemental cold and flame will eventually cause the magic powering our attacker to self-destruct." She did a quick barrel roll to avoid another barrage of dragonfire, which hit one of the lights hanging in the aisle to cause an explosion that took up half the corridor. The two flying women darted around the blast, while the dragon flew out of the cloud of flames without noticing it.

"That simple, huh?" called Marisa, one-handedly slapping out a small fire on her skirt.

"Well, once it's halfway dead it's likely to change color and start attacking even faster, or perhaps sprout extra heads that will fly around independently while shooting fire or cold," the princess admitted. She abruptly dropped altitude to avoid an avalanche of books as a shelf exploded next to her. "It may also try to bounce the spells you're reflecting back into you, so I hope you're good at tennis."

"Sounds pretty complicated. I'm just gonna blast it." Marisa dodged another fireball and tucked in close to Kotohime, grabbing the princess' hands and putting them on the front of her broomstick. "Hold on tight!" she warned.

Without waiting for a response, the witch somehow hopped up off her broom and landed on it feet-first like it was a balance beam, swaying only a little before finding a steady stance. Then, while still hurtling along full-tilt, she turned to face the pursuing dragon and deftly drew two items from her belt - one a simple slip of paper, the other an octagonal block of wood inscribed with mysterious symbols. There was a dangerous glint in the witch's golden eyes as she flourished the spell card, even as a fierce light began to build in the center of the mini-hakkero in her other hand.

"_Blazinnnng Starrrrrr!"_ she crowed. With a sound like a thundercrack, a beam of roaring energy burst out from the hand-held magical reactor she had aimed at the monster, a directed cyclone of power that shone like a sunbeam and completely engulfed the dragon and indeed most of the aisle with it. Marisa's legs flexed and tensed as she braced against the recoil, directing it to speed her broomstick along like a rocket down one of the library's avenues. Bookshelves blurred past with a _whoosh-whoosh-whoosh_ sound barely audible over the howl of magic.

"I guess that works too!" Kotohime shouted. She was hanging on for dear life from the front of Marisa's broomstick, her arms and legs wrapped around it like a red and purple sloth. "A few things, though: we seem to be going pretty fast-"

"Gotta get to Patchy," Marisa declared, beaming widely as she surfed her supersonic Spark-powered broomstick.

"-and we've definitively lost Koakuma-"

"So?"

"-but most alarmingly of all," Kotohime continued, nodding at something ahead of them, "it looks like we're about to run into a shel-"

-x-

* * *

><p>-8-<p>

Marisa came to in an utterly undignified position, flat on her back with her legs up in the air against a wall, her black dress draped over her face and her bloomers on full display. The witch grumbled as she flopped over, struggling to push herself out of the pile of books she'd crash-landed on.

Kotohime was leaning nonchalantly against a shelf, flipping through a tome with a look of sleepy interest on her face. "I think we're in the spellbook section," she said without even looking up at Marisa.

The witch glowered at her before beginning the hunt for her hat. "For the record," said Marisa, "the part about an eminent head-on collision is _slightly_ more important than whether or not we've lost track of an imp."

"I'll make a note of it," Kotohime replied as she turned a page.

"How long was I out?"

"I dunno, I forgot my watch." The princess peered over her book at Marisa. "You know, I'm not happy about how the fight with the dragon went."

Marisa pushed aside some dead mage's spellbook with her foot, searching in vain for her headgear. "Whaddya mean?"

"Well it was a bit of an anticlimax, wasn't it? I mean, it was a big impressive magical dragon of flaming freezing death, and you all but one-shotted it with your Spark."

"Danmaku's a 'one hit you're out' game, Your Highness," the witch replied.

"You know what I mean." Kotohime sighed in vexation. "Everything was set up for an epic battle, but you basically killed it while running away and I didn't get to do anything."

"Well, look at it this way," Marisa told her. "I'm here because you're looking for information, not out to fight a dragon. So let's focus on finding whatever it is you're looking for instead of slugging it out with Patchy's minions." The witch pinched the bridge of her nose, fighting a headache that was only tangentially related to her crash. "And then I can go home and drink until I can pretend today never happened," she muttered to herself.

"I guess you're right," answered Kotohime absently, nose-deep in her book again. "Say, this looks interesting - _in mani ylem!_"

Something went _plop_ and bounced off Marisa's head, something yellow and slightly curved. "Oh what _now?_" the witch grumbled.

"Ooooh…" cooed the princess. She scooped up the object and held it aloft triumphantly. "Gentlemen, _behold!_ From nothing, _I_ have conjured this… _banana!_"

Marisa gave her companion a long-suffering look, inwardly raging at herself for agreeing to lead this ill-fated expedition. "At least we won't starve to death." She kicked aside a hefty tome, revealing a rather squashed black hat half-buried in literary debris.

"_In mani ylem!_" This time the banana went _thud_ onto the carpet two feet away from Kotohime. The princess studied the conjured fruit closely. "Huh. So does it _only_ do bananas? Guess there's only one way to find out. _In mani ylem in mani ylem in-"_

"Knock it off," grouched Marisa as she jammed her hat back on against the rain of bananas. As if the library needed any more of the things – she occasionally found banana peels around the less-traveled back aisles, and concluded that Patchy either had a liking for the exotic fruit, or possessed a weird sense of humor when it came to traps. "Are we done yet?"

"Of course not! The mission remains unfinished!" But Kotohime wasn't leaping into action, instead intent on studying her new spellbook. "What about this one – _in jux por ylem!"_

This time there was a horrifying sound of screaming metal as a greatsword flew down out of the sky at the pair of library visitors, streaking overhead before detonating several paces away, releasing a cloud of straight-edged longswords that burst outward like shrapnel. Marisa spun to avoid one blade almost without thinking about it, while Kotohime didn't react when another flew by to imbed itself in a shelf just a foot from her head.

Marisa rubbed her temples wearily. "And you call yourself a magician… one of the _first_ things you learn is to never _never_ try a spell unless you're damn sure what-"

"I've invented sword danmaku!" gushed Kotohime, bouncing on her heels excitedly.

"I know a maid that has you beat by years," retorted Marisa. "Now if you're done trying to kill us-"

"But there's more! _Vas kal an mani in corp hur t-"_ at which point Marisa shot the spellbook out of the princess' hands with a thin blast of magic. Kotohime gave her an indignant look.

"I thought you had a mission, or a goal, or _something_," Marisa complained. "Something for me to guide you _to_. So what is it?"

"That's classified, and I'll get to it in a sec. I'm just making the most of an opportunity to brush up on my spellcraft," the princess replied, scooping up the dropped grimoire and shoving it down the front of her robes, then looking around for something else to get in to.

"Oh, wait," said Marisa suddenly as inspiration struck. "Oh no," she said in a low voice, "we're in trouble, Your Highness!"

"We are?"

"Yes indeed," the witch nodded. "Remember what I told you about books that wanted to be read?"

Kotohime froze in the act of pulling another text off the shelf. "You mean…"

"That's right! They're trying to trap you here reading them until you starve to death!" exclaimed the witch, waving her arms alarmingly.

The princess let the book she was handling fall to the floor. "What do we do?" she quavered.

"Stay focused," Marisa told her. "Concentrate on your very important and not at all made-up mission. Keep your destination firmly in mind, to fight off the books' papery hold on you!"

Kotohime grimaced with the effort of thinking as hard as she could. "Yes… I can… feel myself… breaking free!" she grunted, red-faced. "We need… to find… Koakuma… she…"

"Has?"

"Has... the… in-"

"Information you're after, gotcha," Marisa finished for her. "So let's go get her, eh?"

Kotohime staggered, furiously shaking her head before finding her footing again. "Thank you, my friend," she said somberly, putting a hand on Marisa's shoulder. "I know we've had our differences in the past, but you have proven an able guide and true friend in the face of today's trials."

"Yeah, well…" Marisa covered her embarrassment by grabbing a few smaller books at random and shoving them into her pockets. "Let's save the congratulations for when we're home free, alright? Now let's go talk to the demon."

"You know where she is?" asked the policewoman.

"Patchy said she was doing a translation, right?" replied a grinning Marisa. "Means she's probably in the reference section, where the dictionaries are. And where there's a Patchy, you can usually find a little imp who puts the 'pain in the ass' in 'assistant librarian.'"

"So what are we waiting for?" asked Kotohime excitedly. "Lead the way, Probationary Acting Officer Kirisame!"

"Just missing one thing." Marisa glanced about, saw some straw poking out from under a table-sized grimoire, and withdrew one half of a bamboo broomstick. She scowled at it before muttering words of power, and with a brief flash of light the cleaning implement turned mode of transportation was whole once more. "There we go."

The pair leapt into the sky once more, battered from combat but filled with renewed purpose, eager to-

"And _what_ did I say about narrating?"

-x-

* * *

><p>-9-<p>

Backtracking wasn't too difficult, as Marisa had a general idea of where to go, even after the Koakuma chase and the panicked flight from the flaming freezing metal dragon. There was a moment when Kotohime had to stop and gawk at an elaborate globe, complete with clouds drifting over its surface and a tiny orbiting sun and moon, but Marisa was able to pull her away before too long. She knew they were on the right path when they flew over piles of books knocked from the shelves, and one aisle missing half of its lights.

"You'd think a librarian would be disinclined to explode her own library," Kotohime commented.

"Oh, these books are nigh-invulnerable," Marisa assured her. "Got charms on them to keep them fireproof, waterproof, tearproof… you could make a suit of armor out of them and conquer the world," she joked.

"Really?" said Kotohime with a worrying amount of interest. She paused for a moment and snatched a book from its shelf, then set about trying to rip and tear its pages while she flew at Marisa's side. "Hey, you're right, it's as if the pages are some sort of metal. And mostly blank for some reason." She kept flipping through her book. "Oh, here's – _whoa! _It's like a little TV screen built into the page! I see… an island? Looks a bit dusty, maybe if-"

Another expertly-aimed beam of magic sent the book spinning out of her fingers. "I swear, I need to put you on a leash or something," grouched Marisa.

"Oh _ho!_ Didn't think you were into that sort of thing," Kotohime leered. "Then again, from what I've been hearing you chase after a girl who likes to pull peoples' strings, nudge nudge, and then this whole deal with Patchouli has kind of a 'glutton for punishment' vibe to it, so-"

"What can I say, I'm a girl with appetites," was Marisa's disinterested reply. "Now in case you haven't noticed, we're back in the lobby," she said as the two of them burst out of an aisle into the domed, cavernous heart of the library.

Kotohime stood on thin air for a moment, looking around. "So now we go challenge a sorceress for possession of her familiar?"

"You betcha," the witch replied. "And call it a hunch, but I expect Patchy will put up a fight, so you'd better get ready, Your Highness."

"A warrior princess such as myself is ready for combat at any moment," Kotohime assured her. "Let the final battle commence!" She darted forward, face set with grim purpose, before she remembered that she didn't know the way.

Marisa snorted as she took the lead, flying down one of the main avenues between the comparatively shorter bookshelves that covered the ground between the library's open lobby and the towering network of shelves between it and the stacks proper. Kotohime was so excited that she couldn't fly straight, and Marisa thought she could hear the princess humming a dramatic tune to herself.

"Do you think we'll get to fight one of those summoned dragons again?" asked Kotohime, barely paying attention to where they were going. "Or maybe oni? Or ooh, ooh, an army of demons conjured from the abyssal planes! Or vengeful samurai spirits torn from their rest in the netherworld! Aw, I _knew_ I should have brought my holy water, I mean I was entering a vampire's lair, so how stupid was I to leave it at home-"

"Princess?" interrupted Marisa.

"-along with my gun, and my sword, and I've got a set of shuriken made out of all sorts of different metals to overcome any sort of damage reduction, and I've got a dagger that I threw in a lake and even though a spirit didn't come out and give me a golden replacement I_ think_ there was a minor enchantment on it when I fished it out-"

"Hey, Your Highness-"

"-not exactly sure what's best against a magician youkai, maybe some dust to make her cough and choke so she can't recite her spells-"

"_Kotohime_, we're - huh." The witch scratched her jaw. "You know, that's actually kind of clever."

"Agreed," said Patchouli Knowledge. "It would take advantage of the average magician's physical frailty without being an overt physical attack, thereby bypassing many magical wards or defenses. I shall have to allocate time to devising a counter to such a strategy."

"Thanks!" replied Kotohime, beaming. The smile slowly faded as she noticed where they were. "Oh."

She and Marisa were hovering in the air in a large open area of the library, over a huge, sturdy wooden table supporting teetering towers of texts and tomes. Two particular volumes were laid out side-by-side in front of the worn but comfortable-looking chair Patchouli Knowledge was sitting in, a smirking Koakuma standing at attention at her shoulder. The librarian wore an expression somewhere between wry amusement and annoyance.

Kotohime leaned over to whisper at her companion. "How long have we been here?"

"About two minutes."

"Damn."

Patchouli sighed tiredly, slipped a silk bookmark onto the page she was reading, and shut her tome. "We, regrettably, meet again. It seems that my previous attempt to dissuade you from further trespassing was unsuccessful."

"Do you think we could turn around and come again?" Kotohime asked Marisa, ignoring the librarian. "That was a crap entrance, and I want to do this boss fight properly."

Marisa's stare was answer enough.

"Fair enough." Kotohime looked down at the still-seated Patchouli. "Alright, we're here for… wait a minute, you look different," she said suspiciously, leaning closer to peer down at the magician youkai. "For one thing, you're not twenty feet tall, or shiny."

In the flesh, Patchouli Knowledge was roughly as physically intimidating as a pile of laundry. She looked to be a pale woman in her mid-twenties, give or take a decade, though Kotohime knew that the sorceress was at least a century old. Her main distinguishing feature was her lustrous purple hair, flowing down her back and framing her face with two thick braids, a shade of purple matched in her eyes. She wore baggy, shapeless clothes that were probably closer to pajamas than a proper wizard's robes, with a matching nightcap of the same pale lavender color. She didn't seem much for ornamentation besides the yellow crescent moon on the front of her cap and the multicolored ribbons scattered in her hair, and the expressionless, vaguely sleepy look on her face gave the impression that she had much better things to do than dress herself up to entertain guests. The youkai looked more like a sickly shut-in than a world-class magician, though Kotohime figured the two may not be mutually exclusive.

Marisa snorted in derision. "Of course not. That was just an admittedly snazzy projection. How else do you think she managed to cast a spell while talking with us?" The witch looked thoughtful as she talked her way through the magical mechanics. "So she'd have to set it up so her thoughts came out as words on the other end, but the spell she was reciting _didn't_, even though its area of effect was over by the projection. That's impressive," she conceded.

"Thank you," Patchouli said with a polite nod.

"And she was doing all of it on _top_ of casting a spell that blended three types of energy," Marisa went on.

"Well, the summoning I had mostly finished earlier, and I merely had to say the trigger phrase to finalize it when I wished to deploy it," admitted Patchouli, looking down demurely. "It was not a great strain to maintain the illusion while completing the summoning."

"Are we gonna fight now or not?" grumped Kotohime, annoyed at sitting at the sidelines during Magic Talk.

"I believe you are working backwards," suggested the librarian. "You're supposed to ask if you can steal Koakuma, and after I refuse we engage in battle."

"Can we steal K-"

"No." Patchouli effortlessly floated up out of her seat, followed by seven books that fanned out to slowly orbit the magician's waist like an asteroid belt. Now that she was upright, Kotohime could see that Patchouli's hair hung almost to her slippered feet, though now it was swaying as an unnatural breeze began circulating around the magician. She rose higher until she was level with Marisa and Kotohime, her eyes narrowed but the ghost of a challenging grin on her face as she took the measure of her opponents.

The arcane youkai made a gesture and one of her books left formation to open up in front of her, a tome bound in scarlet leather whose yellowed pages bore words that flickered and glowed as though they were written in flames. "Our duel shall follow the spellcard rules, of course," Patchouli announced as she idly paged through her repertoire of magicks. "If you are successful, I shall allow you to employ Koakuma as your assistant for twenty-four hours. If, or I should say_ when_ I am victorious, both of you will leave my library immediately and not return until at least the same amount of time has elapsed."

"Sounds good," said Marisa unconcernedly while flexing her shoulders. She drew her mini-hakkero and began tossing the potent magical artifact up and down like a ball. "Terms work for you, princess?"

"Can I use my bombs?" asked Kotohime. "It's kind of my thing. That and being a charming princess slash policewoman."

"So long as your attacks abide by the rules, you can use whatever you wish. I should really remove this limitation, as I am quite confident that nothing you could possibly attack me with will pose any sort of threat," Patchouli said bluntly. "In fact, as I have already made a prior attack on you, I think it only fair to let you strike the first blow in this duel."

"Oh sah-_nap!_" announced Marisa with a wide grin. "You just got burned, Your Highness. Like a Royal Flare went off, eh, Patchy?" That earned a roll of the eyes from her opponent.

"Your overconfidence shall be your undoing, sorceress," announced Kotohime in a dramatic voice. "Marisa, let's finish this battle with a single strike! Combine your power with mine and unleash the Dual Spark!"

The witch blinked with surprise. "The wha?"

"Spark!" Kotohime reached down one of her sleeves and after a bit of digging withdrew a wooden octagon of her own. "What," she said defiantly at the other two women's shocked looks, "you didn't think a talented magician like myself would be capable of creating her own mini-hakkero?"

"No," lied Marisa. "I'm just surprised that you covered yours with glitter and stickers."

Patchouli squinted at the artifact in Kotohime's hands, which aside from the gaudy decorations looked quite similar to Marisa's. "I sense a great deal of magical instability within that device," the youkai warned. "I would advise that you not attempt to activate it."

"You doubt me? Fine! I'll show you what I'm _really_ capable of! I'll show you all!" Kotohime beamed a challenging grin as she rose higher into the air, then flung her arms out in front of her so that they were cupping her mini-hakkero. "Get ready! _Perfect…_"

The magical reactor began to glow a bright pinkish color, emitting a low throbbing sound that grew in pitch and volume.

"_Princess_…"

The nearby magical lights flickered and dimmed, casting that section of the library into shadow.

"_Ultimate_…"

The obnoxious pinkish glow was like a gaudy sun growing between Kotohime's cupped hands. Her mini-hakkero was shuddering and smoking from the awesome energies building within it.

"_Justice_…"

The rumbling of the charging magical attack sounded and felt like an earthquake. Marisa found herself drifting away from her companion, pushed back by the magical power emanating from Kotohime. A wide-eyed Patchouli began hastily muttering under her breath, preparing her strongest wards for the coming onslaught.

"_Spaaaaaaaark!"_ Kotohime yelled.

And then she exploded.

-x-

* * *

><p>-10-<p>

When the blast had stopped echoing and most of the smoke had cleared, the other two girls looked around to find no trace of Kotohime.

"Was that supposed to happen?" wheezed Patchouli, fighting off an asthma attack.

"I kinda doubt it." Marisa shifted sideways a bit, hovering on her broom while studying the corkscrewing trail of smoke leading up to the hole in the library's central dome. "Though I wouldn't put it past her to blow herself up if she thought it gave her a tactical advantage," she added.

"What a very strange person," the librarian summarized succinctly.

Marisa shook her head. "No-no-no, _I'm_ strange, _you're_ strange, _she's_ borderline pants-on-head crazy."

"Perhaps you are correct. From what I observed of your interactions, _you_ came across as the most normal one."

"I tell ya, crazy." Marisa squinted into the sunlight beaming through the charred hole high above. "So where do you reckon she went?"

Patchouli gave a slight shrug. "I can only estimate. Though we are in a pocket dimension, there is a good deal of correlation between our location and that of the mansion, so she should have emerged somewhere in that general area."

"Eh, I have a feeling she'll be fine. I mean, she's lived this long despite being, well, _her_, right?"

"What did she want with Koakuma, anyway?" asked Patchouli.

"I have no goddamn idea." Marisa stretched, yawning hugely. "Well, it's getting late…"

The librarian's violet eyes blinked slowly. "You're leaving? I thought you would want to finish the duel, at least."

"It's been a loooooong day," explained Marisa.

"Not to mention that it's only mid-afternoon…"

"And every hour with Kotohime is worth three or four regular hours," continued the witch.

Patchouli gave her a suspicious look. "I see."

"Yeah, so I'll just-"

"You're trying to abscond with my property again," the librarian went on, a faint, dangerous smile on her lips. "I've put tracking spells on my entire collection, and can sense eleven of my books on your person. I believe that's a new record for you, at least without a large sack of contraband, so some congratulations are in order, I suppose. Once I recover my books, at any rate."

"Aw shucks, Patchy, I think you're just lookin' for an excuse to frisk me," replied Marisa cheekily.

Still smiling, Patchouli Knowledge rose higher in the air, her gown fluttering in a spectral breeze as her spellbooks resumed their orbit around her waist. "I don't think you'll be leaving so soon," she went on. "I think our battle remains unfinished."

Marisa smirked and drew her mini-hakkero. "Like it rough, do ya?"

-x-

* * *

><p>-11-<p>

The man who reluctantly answered to Mr. Meiunjishaku stared dumbly at the motes of dust dancing in the sunlight spilling down through the hole in his roof, frozen in the act of pouring a drink.

"…the hell just happened?" asked Yōsai faintly, the still-gangly young man swaying a bit on his stool. In fairness, something had just taken out the section of the bar less than a foot to his left.

The owner of the _Princess' Crown_ didn't answer, merely sighing, putting down his pitcher, and picking up a rag to mop up the beer he'd absent-mindedly dumped on the floor.

"Looks like the princess again," chuckled Old Man Itoh as he reached for another handful of nuts.

Yōsai gave the wrinkled geezer a disbelieving look. "_Princess? _We don't have a royal fam-"

"It's best to just play along," advised Itoh in a stage whisper. "It's good for a laugh most of the time. The rest of the time you get something like this, but that can be funny too," he said with a twinkle in his remaining eye.

The barkeep finished cleaning up the lesser of the messes affecting his tavern, and walked over to peer down into the splintered hole in his floor. "You alright down there, Your Highness?" he asked in a tone that suggested he was fine if she wasn't.

"Oh, good afternoon Mr. Meiunjishaku!" came the reply. "Sorry I forgot to knock!"

Itoh sprayed his food all over the bar as guffawed.

"I didn't even know you had a beer cellar," Kotohime's voice went on. "Sorry about this keg, but from what I've tasted it wasn't much of a loss. Do you have anything else on tap?"

The bar's owner wordlessly grabbed the first bottle in reach and tossed it down the hole.

-x-

* * *

><p>-12-<p>

Kotohime easily caught the falling beverage. "Thanks!" she called up to her unseen host a floor above. She took a long pull from the drink without bothering to try to read the label, shifted a bit on her bed of splintered wood and pieces of barrel, looked up at the afternoon sky visible through the pair of holes she'd created, and thought.

She was approaching this problem from all the wrong angles, she decided. First she'd tried stealth, attempting to sneak her way to her objective undetected, but had failed miserably. Then she'd hired a criminal to help her blast her way in, but that wasn't her style either, so of course it had ended badly.

The princess drained the last of the bottle and carelessly tossed it aside to shatter in a corner of the basement.

She was a policewoman, dammit. She didn't need to skulk or smash her way through obstacles. Instead… Kotohime smiled up at the puffy white clouds. What she needed to do was sneak her way inside _while_ being detected, in a way that made everyone think she had every right to be there.

It was time to go undercover again.

-x-

* * *

><p>-13-<p>

The following afternoon, Kotohime stood at the edge of the woods surrounding the Scarlet Devil Mansion, performing one last self-check before her mission window arrived. The sun would be setting soon, and the Scarlet Devil Mansion's contingent of fairy maids would change shifts. She made sure her disguise was perfect, took a deep breath, and walked out into the open, striding fearlessly towards the front gate.

She'd spent all morning looking for Daiyousei before finding the great fairy in another grotto they thought she didn't know about. They'd had a pleasant chat before getting down to business, and thanks to that conversation - as well as a village tailor who didn't _know_ she was contributing to justice but would certainly have agreed to donate her goods if she'd been around when Kotohime was breaking into her shop – Kotohime had all the tools she needed to infiltrate the mansion.

Hong Meiling's eyes widened in surprise as Kotohime emerged from the purplish shadows beneath the trees, and the gatekeeper's head tilted in amusement.

The princess drew up in front of the Chinese youkai and saluted smartly. "Good afternoon, gatekeeper! I'm here for the night shift!"

"Well _this_ is a refreshing new approach," Meiling commented. "Nice disguise, princess."

"Princess?" Kotohime's brow furrowed with exaggerated confusion. "You must be mistaken, for I am only a lowly fairy maid," she claimed, indicating her modest blue dress and frilly white apron, as well as the pair of asymmetrical gauze-and-twine wings barely hanging on to her back

"Oh, I'm terribly sorry, I confused you for someone else," the gatekeeper replied, rolling her eyes. "_Obviously_ you're one of our fairy staff."

"Exactly."

"Even though fairies are typically two to three feet tall at most, while you're what, at least five and a half?"

"Are you saying you discriminate based on employee height?" retorted Kotohime.

"No, of course not. You're just a very _tall_ fairy. By the way," Meiling added, "what's your name?"

"Koto-" The princess' mouth abruptly shut and she stared up at the sky, thinking hard.

"I'm sorry, what was that?" asked Meiling with a teasing smile.

"Koto, Kotta, uh…" stammered Kotohime, struggling for words.

"I've seen a few fairies named after natural things, so maybe you're 'Cotton?'" the gatekeeper prompted.

"That's exactly it!" agreed the 'fairy.' "I'm Cotton…" she glanced around at her surroundings before inspiration struck. "A-ha! Cottonwood Sunset!" she exclaimed, beaming.

Meiling rubbed her chin thoughtfully. "With the likes of Sunny Milk, that sounds almost plausible…" She gave her visitor a penetrating look. "Now Koto-"

"Cottonwood Sunset!" said Kotohime happily.

"Yes, 'Cottonwood,' maybe you should take the night off?" Meiling suggested. "Since you seem to be having difficulty remembering your name? Try again another night when you've gotten everything together?"

"Oh, this just proves that I'm a fairy, since everyone knows fairies are stupid and have awful memories," said Kotohime with a breezy wave of her hand.

"You _have_ done a good job establishing your stupidity," Meiling agreed. "Alright, come on through." Reluctantly she swung open the iron gateway. "Though as you're no doubt well aware, the maids enter through the back door instead of the front gate-"

"But since I'm a stupid fairy, I've forgotten my way and have to go in through the front," interrupted Cottonwood.

"I should have known." Meiling sighed. "Alright, but watch out for Sakuya. She's still in a bad mood over your… over a _completely unrelated_ disturbance yesterday," she said, catching herself. "So she won't take kindly to another intruder. Or an addled fairy maid, whichever she happens to find."

"She'll never know I was here," Kotohime assured her, saluting once more. "Laters!" She positively skipped towards the manor, delighted that her plan was working, oblivious to how her fake wings were bouncing alarmingly.

Meiling waved goodbye, heaved a deep sigh, and went back to her post, settling into the familiar stance she could maintain for hours. Three times in as many days. What was Kotohime after?

-x-

* * *

><p>-14-<p>

The front hall was, once again, completely empty. After a quick look around in case the place had become more interesting since yesterday, Kotohime pushed through the doors and strolled down the hallway leading to the round lobby.

She took another minute to admire the turbulent red sky of the mural overhead before examining her choice of exits. Did she risk a straight shot at the library? Or should she work her way in more slowly in a flanking maneuver, maybe blending in with the manor staff before attempting a late-night infiltration?

Her choice was made for her when a set of doors behind her opened and a quartet of fairies entered the chamber, all but identical with their blonde hair and little blue maid outfits, chattering excitedly until they noticed the newcomer and came to a stop.

"Who are you?" one asked suspiciously. Another hid her face with her hands, giggling shyly, while the remaining two just stared.

"Why, a fairy maid like you, of course," was Kotohime's cheerful reply. "I'm still a little new, though, and I got lost. So I waited here until someone found me. And here you are!"

The little maids exchanged glances, their insectoid wings beating rapidly as they hovered in the air. None of them seemed to have any idea of what to do with the unusually tall "fairy."

"So," Kotohime went on, clapping her hands, "mind if I join your group?"

"Will you help out?" asked the first one, who was presumably the leader.

"Of course! It'd be the least I could do since you came and rescued me."

"Well… I guess it's okay."

"Outstanding." Kotohime drifted over and followed the fairies out of the rotunda. "So," she asked conversationally, "don't suppose you guys are set to clean the library tonight?"

"Huh?" It was one of the previously slack-jawed fairies this time. "Why would we clean there? Lady Patchouli doesn't allow us in anymore. Ever since she moved out of the basement some… um…" the fairy scratched her head, thinking hard. "What's longer, months or years?"

"Depends on the calendar," the princess replied. Well, at least she was now invisible inside enemy territory, even if she couldn't immediately hit her objective. She'd spend a few hours keeping a low profile, ingratiating herself with the working staff… "So," she asked, "what'd'ya need help with?"

-x-

* * *

><p>-15-<p>

"…and that's how you do windows. So, dusting next? Give it a whirl, lemme see what you got… Well no wonder you're not getting results if you're working like _that_. Here," Kotohime said as she snatched the feather duster out of its wielder's loose grip. "You start at the _top_ and work your way _down_. Otherwise you're just knocking dirt onto places you've already cleaned, you see?"

There was a chorus of murmured agreement from the fairy maids crowding around her. Kotohime smiled, happy with being the center of attention even if she was doing housework.

The particular squad of fairies she'd fallen in with had been tasked with getting one of the endlessly-repeating stretches of hallway fit for company. They were as enthusiastic about the job as Kotohime was about long division, and tended to wipe at one corner of a window half-heartedly before getting bored and moving on. So the princess had taken it upon herself to give a little lesson in housekeeping, and before she knew it more groups of fairies had shown up, curious about rumors of the Oversized, Actually Competent Fairy Maid.

"Now with the polish," she went on, taking a tube from one of the workers and spurting some on the candelabra with a flatulent noise that made some of the fairies giggle, "remember to never put it directly on the rag. Put down a glob and then spread it over your surface. It's better for the cloth, your hand, _and_ it helps you get a good even coat. Now, can anyone tell me why we dust first?" she asked, turning to her audience. One of the fairies nervously raised her hand. "Yes, Tiff?"

"So there's nothing between the wax and the metal," the child-like fey said in a near-whisper, too shy to look the princess in the eye.

"Exactly!" beamed Kotohime, just refraining from patting her pupil on the head with a slightly greasy hand. "You'll either end up missing spots, or you'll have cobwebs and other yuck sealed underneath the finish." She clapped her hands. "Alright, let's see how you do it! Tiff and Fion, you take the left side, and Macy and Jess take the right. Let's see if we can get that window sparkling! And remember, this isn't a race, we're seeing who can do the better job!"

The fairies' bright, chirpy responses brought to mind songbirds, and Kotohime smiled at her students. They really weren't totally identical – Fion's hair had a hint of red, while Macy's eyes where a paler blue than Jess' aquamarine shade. And if you made a job sound interesting, they weren't that lazy, either. And... alright, they still hadn't figured out that the person twice their size wasn't a real fairy, but two out of three wasn't bad.

Kotohime turned to Marie, the leader of the group that had met her in the rotunda. "So how's that for teamwork?" she asked cheerfully.

"I think you're going to make the Head Maid… _happy_," the fairy breathed, awestruck.

She might as well shoved Cirno down the back of Kotohime's dress. "Oh, there's no need to get _her_ involved," the princess said quickly. "I'm much too modest. Please, don't tell her-"

"But she's coming this way," Marie interrupted, pointing past the princess' shoulder.

Kotohime turned and saw the shape approaching out of the corner of her eye-

-and in a heartbeat it was simply _gone_, while the back of her neck tingled as she sensed a presence behind her.

"Impressive," remarked a woman's voice, cool and calm. "If I don't end up killing you, I may hire you as a manager. Leave us." This was directed at the group of staring fairy maids, who quickly fluttered down a side hallway and out of sight.

Kotohime started to–

-turn, and by the time she was facing the newcomer, she noticed that a familiar weight at her belt was missing.

Another maid stood before her, but a human-sized one: a young woman who could have been in her late teens or early twenties, though her silvery-gray hair threw things off a bit. Her face, framed by a pair of braids hanging from just over her temples, would have been pretty enough had she been smiling, but it was set into a neutral mask, her dark blue eyes cold and pitiless as they studied Kotohime, as if calculating where to strike. It was the sort of look the princess expected from a professional assassin or a trained sniper.

The woman's attire was a marked contrast to her intimidating expression - she wore a blue dress and a frilly, very pale pink apron with matching headband, the very image of the archetypical French maid. Except _this_ maid was Sakuya Izayoi, known and feared throughout Gensokyo for her skill at manipulating time, a talent matched only by her skill with knives. The "dog of the devil," Remilia Scarlet's head maid, and rumored assassin-ninja-serial killer-former vampire hunter-Lunarian-cyborg-

"What is this?" Sakuya asked, interrupting Kotohime's train of thought. She held up the tined metal rod she had swiped from the princess' belt. "Some sort of… tonfa, I believe?"

"It's a _jitte_," Kotohime corrected, remaining calm. "Traditional sidearm of the policeman. The little doodad sticking out from it helps catch swords, while the rest of it is for beating asses." She sighed. "I guess that blows my cover."

"Well, no," the head maid answered. "Your shoddy costume did that. You _do_ know that one of your wings has fallen off?" Kotohime winced, but didn't risk checking. "So you're obviously human, and certainly not one of our employees." She gave the princess an intense, slightly puzzled, stare. "Other than that, I have no idea who you are."

The other woman blinked. "Oh," the princess said a little dejectedly. "Well then. I am Kotohime," she said with a bow, "Gensokyo's princess, chief of police, postmaster-general, official cartographer, head of-"

"I think I've heard enough." Sakuya flourished the confiscated _jittie_ a bit and hung it from her apron pocket by its tine. "Regardless of the number of titles you have somehow collected, you are an uninvited guest, so I must ask you to accompany me to the exit," she said politely, but firmly.

"And if I refuse?" countered Kotohime.

There was no blur, no sensation of speed. Sakuya was simply _there_ at her side, a long, thin knife held against the side of Kotohime's neck, the edge coming just short of actually drawing blood.

"I never said I _was_ refusing," the princess said out of the corner of her mouth, trying hard not to swallow.

The head maid was standing in front of her again, arms folded, a reddish blur fading from her eyes. "A wise decision," she said with a curt nod. "I'm surprised, though – you_ are_ the intruder that accompanied the witch yesterday, correct?"

"It's a fair cop," Kotohime replied, smiling a little.

"And though you dared face Patchouli Knowledge in battle on that occasion, you have declined giving me the same honor," Sakuya went on.

"The librarian is just a magician, someone I can fight on near-equal footing," the princess explained, rubbing her neck absently. "But _you_ have crazy time skills, and until I work out the bugs with my Personal Temporal Compressor, I don't have a way to counter that. I've got a few tricks up my sleeve, but not enough-"

"Are you carrying any other weapons?" Sakuya interrupted.

"Just my-"

-but no sooner had Kotohime reached for the pouch at her waist than it was suddenly in Sakuya's hands. "Oh, please be _very _careful with that," the princess pleaded. "That's genuine dodongo leather. Very rare. And I would not recommend opening it."

The maid froze in the act of putting the bag away, her eyes narrowed slightly. "And why not?"

"Because I think you'll be humiliated and possibly injured by it. It's very dangerous."

Sakuya looked thoughtfully at the bundle, then at Kotohime. "If I recall, you admitted that you could not defeat me. So why didn't-"

"Oh, you're absolutely right," the princess assured her. "I mean, you can frickin' _stop time_, how the hell am I supposed to counter that? I can't take you in a fair fight."

The other woman frowned with suspicion. "But you think whatever is in this container is a threat to me?"

"Most assuredly," Kotohime said with a nod. "See, I've been totally compliant and have taken pains to point out that you're out of my league, so you're not expecting a battle now. And you're kind of insulted by my suggestion that my harmless-looking bag could pose any danger. And by now your curiosity is driving you crazy, but at the same time your pride won't let you be properly cautious when handling the bag. So you'll-"

"This is ridiculous," Sakuya said, rolling her eyes. She reached into the bag. "See, there's-"

The blast shattered the nearby window and left the maid slumped against the wall in an awkward, bandy-legged seat.

Kotohime rose from where she'd hastily ducked and covered, shaking her head sadly. "So you'll just reach in and trigger the booby trap," she finished. She knelt down to check on her would-be captor, who stared muzzily up at her. "Well, the good news is that the damage isn't permanent," the princess declared. "Just a minor concussion from the looks of it. The ringing in your ears should go away soon, and the dizziness won't be too bad unless you try to get-"

Sakuya lunged at her, missed, and sprawled face-down on the carpet.

"-to get up, yeah, just like that," sighed Kotohime. "Anyway, you'll probably lose consciousness about… now."

The maid mumbled slightly before going still, breathing deeply of the tasteful red rug.

"So… yeah. I'll go on ahead and you can just… keep being… unconscious." Kotohime shrugged, scooped up her confiscated weapon, sighed over the loss of her stash of bombs, and walked away, whistling nonchalantly as she strolled away from the scorch marks and broken glass.

Less than a minute later she heard shouting. Not long after that a distant alarm bell started clamoring, an obnoxious metallic clanging that seemed to come from every corner of the mansion. Kotohime frowned and took a moment to consider her situation.

So... her infiltration of the manor had gone well up until the moment her disguise had failed and she'd been forced to incapacitate the head maid and chief of security. So now not only was the alarm raised, but – Kotohime glanced out a red window – yes, it was now night. Which meant that the whole mansion on alert, _and_ its vampiric mistress was presumably up and active, wondering what the problem was and what had happened to her head maid, who Kotohime had left unconscious on the floor.

Kotohime launched herself into the air, barreling along at full speed down the twisting corridors towards the library. If she hurried, she might get to have her rematch with Patchouli Knowledge before an angry vampire caught up with her. Not that she was looking forward to the coming battle – the magician had undoubtedly redoubled her defenses since yesterday's encounter. There were few things as challenging as facing a wizard in her own lair…

The princess' face split into a grin. She changed course, heading back towards the central rotunda, blasting past a gaggle of panicking fairy maids before they had time to react.

Well, what could she do to make Patchouli Knowledge leave her library _and_ distract the Lady Scarlet from hunting down whoever had inconvenienced her head maid? The answer, Kotohime thought, was elegant in its simplicity, though she admitted that an outside observer might label it suicidal instead.

-x-

* * *

><p>-16-<p>

The whole mansion was in an uproar, search parties were sweeping the corridors for the intruder, Patchouli Knowledge was surely preparing her defenses... and yet Kotohime was advancing into the very heart of the Scarlet Devil Mansion completely unnoticed. She realized she was humming Beethoven's Ninth as she reached the rotunda room, guarded by a lone fairy maid too busy trying to find a corner to hide in to notice the intruder. The neglected, dingy door stuck a little, but the princess shouldered it open, revealing a tight staircase spiraling down into the gloom, mildew growing between the bricks of its walls and a few guttering candles flickering in dusty niches.

The princess took care to _almost_ completely shut the door behind her, so that it appeared closed but could be shoved open quickly and easily, before drifting down the stairs into the mansion's depths. She emerged seconds later into a dank, cavernous chamber, lit by a lone lantern fitted next to the staircase's landing. The walls were covered with crisscrossing wooden slats supporting bottles – a wine cellar, then. Kotohime supposed vampires liked to have the stuff handy in case they entertained, even if they preferred a different beverage.

She peered into the gloom, trying to figure out where to go next. There was a wide, arched doorway through which she could make out _another_ wine cellar, a half-closed door that looked like it led into a pantry, another archway leading into an empty, open chamber… Kotohime frowned, regretting that she'd forgotten her night vision goggles at home.

And then, in the stillness and the darkness of the basement, she heard singing.

It was faint, echoing off the slightly damp bricks from a deeper sub-level. Kotohime couldn't make out the words, just that it sounded like a lonely lullaby sung by a little girl.

Kotohime floated silently through the musty darkness, listening intently. She traced the sounds to one corner, where she discovered the entrance to a narrow hallway partially hidden behind a huge wine cask. She followed the distant, echoing music down a corridor lit by the dying stump of a candle, and rounded the bend to find a long, deep staircase descending into darkness. The singing was getting louder.

Uncharacteristic hesitation gripped Kotohime before she made her descent. She nearly had a heart attack when her dangling foot brushed something on a stair beneath her, something that clattered down several steps before coming to a rest. The echoes faded into silence – the singing girl had stopped too. Kotohime hung motionless in the air, barely daring to breathe, until the song resumed.

She tried not to think about what she'd bumped into. It certainly wasn't metal, stone, or wood.

Finally there was light ahead, shed by two candelabras flanking the landing of the staircase. Kotohime found herself in a small, plain room, floating in front of a single thick wooden door set into the wall opposite the stairs. Most of the candles had burnt out, but there was just enough light for Kotohime to see herself with, and the song was clearly audible now, carrying through the door.

_"Apples, honey, apricot jam in the tea.  
>I throw the silver teaspoon against the wall…"<em>

There was a rattle of something impacting on stone that didn't sound anything like an eating utensil.

"_Come now, let's play, the dolls never say anything,  
>They just sing the only song they know…"<em>

Kotohime brushed herself off, straightened up, took a deep breath, and knocked smartly on the door.

The singing abruptly stopped, and Kotohime heard a clinking, metallic noise from the chamber beyond. "Oh?" said the unseen girl in a soft, breathy voice. Kotohime noticed a faint light emanating from the crack under the door, a multihued glow as if there was a captive rainbow in the next room. "Is it someone new?" The voice was louder, closer, and Kotohime fought the urge to step backward. "Who's there?" the girl demanded.

"Good evening! I'm Kotohime," the princess said brightly, "prin-"

"Are you here to feed me?" A distinct sniffing sound came from the other side of the door. "I can smell food on you."

Kotohime glanced down in case she had spontaneously sprouted a hamburger, but couldn't see anything. "Ah, no, I'm not carrying any food, sorry. I can conjure up a banana if you want one, though!"

"But it smells so good… and it's almost time for breakfast." The clinking sound, like a swinging chandelier, grew closer, until it was right on the other side of the door. The rainbow glow seeping under it was quite bright now. "Are you scared?"

"Why should I be?" asked Kotohime as the skin on the back of her neck began to crawl.

"I can hear your heart beating," the voice nearly whispered. "It just sped up again."

For one of the few times in her life, Kotohime felt afraid. "You know," she said slowly, while her scalp prickled with cold sweat, "maybe this was a bad idea. I should go."

"Awww!" There was a petulant stamp. "But I'm bored and hungry-"

"I could get you some food," Kotohime offered, taking a step away. "I'll go up to the kitchens and-"

"Wait…" the girl interrupted. "Does Big Sis know you're down here? Or Meiling?"

"Oh, I'm pretty sure everyone knows I'm here!" the princess said with brittle cheer.

The girl wasn't fooled. "So _you're_ the intruder everyone upstairs is after!" she gasped, but she sounded more excited than frightened. "Oh, this'll be _fun!_ I can stop you and save the day!"

"That won't be necessary, I'll just nip off and turn myself in," said Kotohime quickly. She looked down at the door, searching for-

There wasn't a lock.

There wasn't a bolt, there wasn't a chain, there wasn't so much as a doorstop. There was nothing to prevent the terrifyingly dangerous vampire on the other side from just opening the door and stepping out. Which was what was happening now, the part of Kotohime that wasn't gibbering in terror realized as the knob began to turn. She threw her full weight against the door.

"Hey! Lemme out!" The door shuddered, nearly flinging Kotohime from her feet, but the princess kept her balance and shoved back with all her might.

"Nuh-uh!" Kotohime gasped. Okay, so she had to hold the portal against the vampire while _at the same time_ fleeing from the building –

"Don't make me break the door!" the girl warned.

"I have an idea!" panted Kotohime. "Let's play a game!"

The inhumanly strong pressure on the other side of the door ceased. "Hmm?"

"Yeah, hide-and-seek! I'll hide, you seek!" Kotohime grinned nervously at the dark cellar walls. "Just gimme five minutes' head start!"

There was a pause as the vampire considered this. "What number do I count to?"

"Better make it a thousand, I've got _terrible_ asthma and can't run very fast," Kotohime assured her. "It wouldn't be a challenge otherwise."

"That's a long time to count," the girl said uncertainly, then her voice brightened. "So I'll just count to ten. One… two…"

Kotohime was surprised there wasn't a sonic boom as she rocketed away from the door, flying near-blind through a dark and confined basement, confident that even if she killed herself by headbutting a brick wall she'd meet a better end than what could happen if the vampire caught up with her.

Aside from that, she supposed everything was going according to plan.

She slowed down a bit as her panic faded enough for her to realize that she had taken a wrong turn. The shelves lining the walls of the room she was in supported boxes of candlesticks, old oil lamps, and moldering bundles that could have been blankets. The only light came from a small arched window – too small to fit through, dammit! – set high on the wall, letting a few slender moonbeams fall into the room. It certainly wasn't the wine cellar with the staircase leading back to the upper levels.

Kotohime growled in panicked frustration, bitterly lamenting the loss of the explosives she could've used to make her own exit. She looked around frantically, searching for a familiar bit of scenery so she could backtrack, but instead spotted a multicolored glow on the walls of the hallway she'd entered from.

The old conundrum, fight or flight? Unfortunately her bomb bag was currently a few empty shreds of leather - thanks a _lot_, Sakuya - which limited Kotohime's combat options considerably. So she threw herself below a shelf, crawled behind a large box containing mangled, rusting scraps of armor, and curled up into a tight ball, trying to stay out of sight and biting her knuckle so she didn't whimper.

There was a breathless eternity as Kotohime waited in her hiding place, unable to see her pursuer over the box she was sheltering behind. But she could notice how the room lit up with a swirl of brilliant colors that slowly drifted over the walls, growing brighter as their source drew closer, before going still. In the tense silence Kotohime prayed with all her might that she was too far away for her hammering heart to be audible, that the vampire couldn't hear the blood surging through her veins. She held her breath, her whole body rigid with tension and terror, waiting for the predator to make its next move.

There was a sniff, and a voice mumbled something about mold.

And the lights gradually began to move away, growing fainter and fainter until the chamber was left in blessed near-darkness.

Kotohime slowly, cautiously peeked around the corner of her sheltering crate. Across the room and down an open hallway she could see a near horizontal line of multicolored points of light disappearing into the murk. She waited until her pursuer was completely out of sight before crawling out of cover, drenched with sweat, nearly sobbing with relief-

_"Found you."_

Kotohime screamed shrilly as someone dropped down behind her. She spun around and slipped on the slick stones, falling onto her backside.

The girl was short and stick-thin, almost emaciated and corpselike to Kotohime's wide, terrified eyes. Her skin was creamy white, the paleness that comes from dwelling for centuries in darkness and shunning the sunlight; her hair was a light, almost bleached blonde, cut short with a ponytail on her left side. She wore a short red dress and matching vest over a pinkish shirt, as well as shapeless pink cap tied in a red ribbon.

All that kind of settled in around the two things that immediately grabbed Kotohime's attention. First was the girl's wings, which weren't in the least bit batlike, but instead looked like two sets of multicolored crystals dangling from black iron supports – as Kotohime watched, embers of light inside the gemstones kindled and grew until there was a proper swirl of colors reflecting from the room's walls. Second was the girl's eyes, wide and eager and doubly scarlet – her pupils were a deep crimson, while the "whites" around them were completely bloodshot pools of red. And they glowed, too, not as much as the girl's abstract wings, but certainly enough to grab Kotohime's gaze like a clawed hand.

Flandre Scarlet, the younger sister of the vampiric mistress of the Scarlet Devil Mansion, a creature with the mind of a seven-year-old and the destructive potential of a demigod, a vampire who couldn't feed normally because she all but vaporized anyone she attacked.

High-pitched giggling echoed from all around Kotohime, and the policewoman glanced about madly, gaping in disbelief as three more figures emerged from the shadowy passages leading away from the room. Each was identical to the Flandre Scarlet standing in front of her, and each bore the exact same crazed grin. They drew in close to Kotohime, surrounding her so that their wingtips almost touched, looming over the seated woman like a cage of nightmares.

The Flandre in front of her leaned forward, her very white teeth bared in a wide smile, and poked Kotohime in the forehead. "_You're it_."

There was a long moment of silence in the basement.

"Excuse me?" asked the princess politely, struggling and failing to get a handle on the situation.

"You're it," Flandre repeated, all four of her speaking in unison.

"We were playing hide-and-seek, remember?" the Flandre in front reminded her.

"So," said the Flandre behind Kotohime as she jabbed the princess in the shoulder, making her flinch, "now it's _my_ turn to hide!"

"Yes! Yes it is!" Kotohime practically shouted, her knees trembling with relief, which made pushing herself off the floor a little difficult. "Yeah, you'd better hide, 'cause I'mma get you!"

"Yaaaaay!" squealed the little vampire, her three clones cheering and hopping with excitement.

"But hey, let's get out of this dank old basement and take things upstairs, alright?" Kotohime quickly added before the girl could disappear. "I'm at an unfair disadvantage, and I'm sure you're sick of this place, eh?"

The first Flandre tilted her head, casting her face in shadow, which just made her narrowed red eyes glow all the brighter. "But Big Sis doesn't like it when I go upstairs without permission…"

"Well…" Kotohime scratched her jaw, then smiled as a thought occurred. "Well hey, I'm the dangerous intruder, right?"

"I guess…" said the vampire uncertainly.

"So either I'm pursuing you out of the basement, or you're chasing me upstairs, how about that?"

Flandre blinked in puzzlement. "But I thought we were playing hide-and-seek…"

"Yes, but we're doing it _at the same time_ that you're handling an uninvited guest," Kotohime explained. "Us playing a game does not preclude us having a confrontation. We're just resolving it in an unorthodox way. Like spell cards!"

The little vampire stared at her blankly.

Kotohime sighed and covered her eyes with her hands. "I'm going to count to twenty, okay? One… two…"

There was a giggle, a sound like a bunch of sticks being whipped through the air, and a brief gust of wind. The princess peeked through her fingers and discovered that she was alone in the basement. She let out a shuddering sigh of relief, her legs failing her as she collapsed into an awkward seat once again.

She had newfound respect for Reimu and Marisa. It was one thing to go around blasting youkai, quite another to face down a vampire in her own home.

Kotohime wondered if she should have told Flandre to get rid of the clones before hiding, but reasoned that four copies made her four times as likely to get noticed, which was the whole point of this exercise. Now all she had to do-

_"It's the young mistress!"_ a high-pitched voice squealed from a floor above. It was followed by a chorus of screams and the sound of breaking furniture.

Kotohime grinned to herself in the darkness before resuming her search for the staircase upstairs. Yep, everything was proceeding just as planned.

-x-

* * *

><p>-17-<p>

"Do we know where she went?" That voice could only be Patchouli Knowledge, though she sounded unusually brusque and commanding.

Kotohime skulked in the shadows of the spiral staircase leading back into the mansion's rotunda, staying out of sight while she listened to the conversation.

"She, she, she was hiding under a table-" that sounded like one of the fairy maids "-and when she saw me she flew off towards the kitchens. But then Sana saw her going upstairs and Val says she saw her-"

"So she's duplicated herself again." Patchouli sighed with annoyance. "Very well. Break into teams and start sweeping the mansion; if you see the Young Mistress, raise the alarm and I'll come to help as soon as possible. I will not order you to refrain from attempting to restrain her, as I'm certain you'll flee at the sight of her. Now, where is Sakuya?"

"We don't know!" The fairy's voice sounded close to panic.

That earned a moment's pause from the normally-unflappable librarian. "If you should happen to find Miss Izayoi, either send her to me or send someone to find me," Patchouli finally ordered. "Now, you, you and you, go to our gatekeeper and tell her she's required inside. You and _you_ get to tell your mistress that her younger sibling is loose again. The rest of you, start searching."

A distant explosion rocked the mansion.

"_Now!_" snapped Patchouli, raising her voice for the first time.

As she listened to the sound of a cloud of fairies taking flight, Kotohime mused that Patchouli would make an ideal sergeant. She kept her head in a crisis situation and gave orders well, which was just what you wanted in an officer working in the thick of things. Plus she could conjure up freezing metal dragons that breathed fire, which was always a plus. Maybe once this mission was wrapped up she should offer her a job.

In the meanwhile, the Scarlet Devil Mansion's library was completely undefended. After going a minute without hearing anything but distant crashes and shouts, Kotohime grinned wickedly and launched herself out of the stairwell like a red-and-purple cannonball.

-x-

* * *

><p>-18-<p>

Koakuma took a long drag of her cigarette and kicked her heels from her seat on the edge of a fountain. After savoring the flavor for a moment she blew out a slow-moving smoke ring, and watched it float up towards the windows ringing the dome in the library's center. Rainwater was rolling down the glass in sheets, the by-product of the simple spell Patchouli Knowledge had used to conjure a downpour over the mansion – useful when it came time to water the plants, and useful if you wished to keep a vampire from going outdoors.

It was quite peaceful, with the distant drumming of the rain on the roof and the burble of the fountain's water, even though the rest of the mansion was in chaos over another Flandre rampage. And this of course meant that Miss Patchouli had to go out and manage things, leaving Koakuma with nothing to do for the foreseeable future. No hauling around stacks of creaking tomes, no fetching tea and snacks for a person who could otherwise forget to eat.

Some familiars were supposed to feel bad when they weren't being useful. Koakuma didn't consider herself a familiar, just an employee yanked from her home in-

"Hello!"

Kotohime was impressed – the little demon spent only a second spazzing out before she leapt into the air, but the princess was faster and tackled her legs, bringing both of them crashing to the ground.

"Come on, do you really want to tear that dress?" asked Kotohime as her quarry tried to kick her. "It's got that whole 'hot librarian' look going that most women would kill for."

"How did you – _what do you want?"_ the assistant librarian yelped.

"Just a few minutes of your time," the policewoman replied calmly, even though she was pinning the other woman to the ground with the weight of her body. "I need to ask you a few questions."

Koakuma went still. "'bout what?" she asked suspiciously.

Kotohime gently pushed herself off the imp, chuckling. "My, if someone else had seen that they might think we'd been doing something inappropriate." She helped pull the scowling demoness upright. "Now," she continued, flipping open a notepad and drawing a miraculously unbroken pencil from her sleeve, "let's talk about portals…"

-x-

* * *

><p>-19-<p>

"_One person_ caused all this mayhem?" asked Remilia Scarlet in disbelief.

She was conferring with Patchouli Knowledge out on the mansion's back yard, where a cluster of café-style tables and chairs were arranged for just such an occasion. Beyond the lampposts lining the patio, Hong Meiling was romping around the slightly-wet grass, a laughing Flandre on her shoulders, providing a cozy domestic backdrop while the mansion's mistress and head librarian chatted over snacks.

Patchouli was worn out from the night's exertions and had sunk into her seat's overstuffed cushions with no small amount of gratitude. In contrast, Remilia was leaned forward slightly, her fingers folded before her face as she assumed what Patchouli in the privacy of her own mind called the Scheming Pose. The effect might have been intimidating were the vampire wearing something other than her usual lacy, pale pink dress and matching mob cap, or so short that she had to sit on a thick cushion to look Patchouli in the eye.

"I would remind you that you have many such acquaintances capable of raising similar levels of hell," said Patchouli placidly after swallowing a sip of tea.

The vampire's crimson eyes narrowed before she nodded, conceding the point. "Well, yes, but… just who is this woman? She challenges Meiling to a fight and loses, but the next day teams up with Kirisame and attacks the library-"

"Blowing herself up in the process," Patchouli reminded her, a smile tugging on the corners of her mouth. She covered the lapse of her stoic façade by taking a bite out of a cookie. They were deliciously moist, almost cakelike, though she had to make sure she was eating off the white plate instead of the red one – the vampires added certain ingredients to the recipe that Patchouli found less palatable.

Remilia's pale blue hair swayed as she shook her head, chuckling. "Indeed. I should stay awake during daylight hours so I don't miss such amusements."

"It was almost worth the mess she and Marisa made," the librarian agreed. She took another bite of her snack – it really was quite good.

"But her actions this evening are less entertaining," Remilia continued, her childish face shifting into an almost exaggerated expression of seriousness. "She penetrated my defenses, incapacitated my best fighter and most faithful servant, and manipulated my sister into furthering her own schemes. And for what?"

"A chance to talk to Koakuma, it seems," Patchouli said with a slight shrug.

Remilia frowned. "Who?"

"My familiar," the librarian said patiently.

"Oh, that's right." Remilia drummed her fingers on the tabletop. "So, what did they talk about?"

"She says she was offered a job on the Gensokyo police force. She turned it down, and Kotohime promptly departed."

The vampire looked up at the sky, mostly free of clouds now that the rain spell was dismissed. "Does Gensokyo-"

"As far as I can tell, no."

"Yet you said this woman claims to be its chief of police."

"Yes," said Patchouli patiently, "as well as a princess, a magician, a martial artist, and any number of similarly insane things. The woman is clearly delusional."

"Why have I not heard of this 'Kotohime' before?" demanded Remilia a bit petulantly.

"Perhaps because you are more concerned with rival power blocs such as Eientei and the Moriya Shrine, and never considered that an individual could pose a serious threat to you and your ambitions?" her friend suggested. "A mistake I seem to recall you making when we first-"

"I get the point, Patchy," huffed the vampire girl, scowling. There was a moment's silence, broken only by the song of the night birds and Flandre's cheers – now four of her were wrestling with Meiling's arms and legs, trying and failing to stop the grinning Chinese youkai from staggering around the yard.

"How is Sakuya?" asked Remilia eventually, suspiciously unconcerned.

"Sleeping in her room. Or so she says," reported Patchouli. "I think her pride was hurt more than anything else."

"Hmm." Remilia resumed the Scheming Pose. "Perhaps I should send her after this Kotohime for a chance to redeem herself."

Patchouli winced. "I hardly think that's necessary. Sakuya admitted that she was careless-"

"But the woman _did_ attack my mansion," Remilia pointed out.

"Indeed, but if you sent Sakuya after everyone you've crossed swords with, there wouldn't be many people left in Gensokyo," countered the librarian. "Besides, Kotohime is more of an annoyance than a genuine threat. Everyone else seems to tolerate her eccentricities, so why shouldn't you?"

"Hmm…" The childlike vampire frowned, but it slowly turned into a slight, dangerous smile. "Perhaps I should meet this Kotohime instead. Have her explain herself. Maybe have her for dinner."

"I'd recommend phrasing your invitation a different way," her friend pointed out.

"Something to consider, certainly." Remilia hopped out of her chair and into the air with a single downbeat of her leathery, batlike wings. She hovered near the table, looking down at her companion. "I shall have a word with Sakuya. Will you be turning in soon?" she asked.

"Actually, no." Patchouli smiled up at the moon. "It's a pleasant enough evening. I think I'll work outside in the fresh air for a while." She noticed a figure stepping out onto the patio. "Ah, there she is," she said as Koakuma drew closer.

"Just don't strain your eyes," warned the vampire as she coasted towards her mansion.

Patchouli snorted and snapped her fingers, conjuring a lantern-bright orb of light that hovered just over her shoulder. "Thank you, Koakuma," she said as her assistant set down her burden. Patchouli's faint smile disappeared when she got a good look at what had been put on her table. "Koakuma," she said after a moment, "you may recall that I asked you to retrieve a Farsi-Japanese dictionary and my copy of _Kashf al-Mahjûb_."

"Yes, mistress."

"And yet," the librarian continued, peering at the spines of the books offered, "you appear to have given me part one of Durante degli Alighieri's _Commedia,_ chapter nine of the _Ὀδύσσεια__, _and a copy of _Moby Dick_."

"I have, mistress?"

"Unless you have suddenly manifested a hitherto unseen aptitude for illusion spells in a childish attempt to find amusement from my momentary misidentification of these texts, yes. Since I cannot detect any such spellcraft about these objects, and find the notion that your ability to shroud such enchantments would surpass my own considerable arcane talents to be patently ridiculous, I must conclude that these are indeed the books I just mentioned, as opposed to the books I asked for."

The little devil fidgeted nervously. "Sorry, mistress."

Patchouli tapped the leather-bound volume on the top thoughtfully. "I must admit to being baffled in my efforts to imagine an explanation for such a mistake, since the books I sent you after are in one distinct section of my library, while these books are a widely-varied sampling from my exhaustive selection of fictional works. Just retrieving all three volumes in the space between me giving the order and you bringing them back would be an impressive accomplishment in itself." She gave her assistant a penetrating stare. "Had you prepared these books prior to this delivery, in anticipation of such a prank?"

Koakuma winced. "No, mistress. I was just distracted, mistress."

The librarian cocked her head. "By what? Surely by now you are used to the younger Scarlet's little rampages? Surely after encountering the likes of Marisa you are prepared for someone such as this Kotohime?"

"Well," the imp said, staring somewhere past Patchouli's left ear, "it's just that she made a very tempting offer. On-the-job training, a custom uniform, a personal sidearm, a retirement plan, up to seven days off each month, full dental-"

"May I remind you that you are my bound familiar?" said Patchouli archly. "Also, that woman is insane," she added as an afterthought.

"Yes, mistress," Koakuma said meekly.

Patchouli's violet eyes bore into the little devil, and found nothing but guileless embarrassment. "Though perhaps I have been asking too much of you," she finally said. "Now that other employers are competing for your services, maybe I should improve the terms of our compact?"

"Mistress?" asked her assistant, perplexed.

"Oh, be quiet and have the rest of the night off," Patchouli said with a wave of her hand. "I should take a break as well. Now run along." She cracked open one of the books at random and started reading.

"Yes mistress," Koakuma said with a little bow, and hurried off before her grin betrayed her.

-x-

* * *

><p>-20-<p>

The little devil flew back towards the library and the cozy little niche she had carved out for herself in it, smiling as she winged her way between the shelves. At least _some_ good had come out of Kotohime's visit. Koakuma wondered just how far she could stretch the nonexistent threat of a competing job offer to get more time off. It might be worth bumping into the "princess" again.

She also wondered if she should send a message to her homeland, warning that this Kotohime person was taking an interest, but... she decided against it. Just how much trouble could the self-proclaimed princess cause?

Koakuma started laughing just imagining it.

-x-

* * *

><p><em><strong>Author's Notes<strong>_

_I think it's traditional to mention The Dreaded Continuity to show that I too read _Penny Arcade_. Yes, this bloated, rambling tale will be concluded next chapter, to which this chapter is mostly a set-up. Hell, I probably could have skipped it if I wanted, but I liked the premise and wanted to see how it would play out.  
><em>

_So what else... well, Kotohime literally means "rabbit princess," __so that explains her callsign, at least._

_On money matters: I have no idea what, if any, currency Gensokyo uses. It's entirely possible that Reimu's donations take the form of food and services, and that the humans of the region operate on a barter-based economy. If they do have minted coinage, I have no clue what it would be – yen, its precursor, or something else. I have no idea what prices would be like for such an isolated economy, so I just made up some numbers which would be ridiculously low for modern yen and pretty high for older currency, in the hope that doing so somehow balanced out. In retrospect, it opens a huge can of worms just to make a quick gag about Kotohime mistaking haggling for a bidding war._

_My idea of Voile (_if_ that's the name of Patchy's library) owes a lot to a piece of fanart I've seen attributed to both Tamashii and Sakura Sora. I don't know anything about those people or who really did the picture, but all I knows is that it's post # 514512 on Danbooru, if you don't mind NSFW ads. Now, this directly contradicts the canon that Patchy's library is under the mansion, windowless, dusty, and moldy. But I like to think that she used her magical talents to relocate her book collection to an extradimensional space that would be easier on them, and which she can renovate at her leisure._

_Marisa's one of my favorite characters, so I enjoyed having her play such a large part of this chapter. Hopefully I've kept to the characterization most people expect. Marisa and Patchy both noted something I noticed while writing this – with someone like Kotohime around, Marisa ends up playing the straight man, something she very rarely does with the rest of the _Touhou_ cast. __  
><em>

_Sakuya fans may be feeling a bit cheated, but after all that time in the library I didn't want a drawn-out fight scene (which is the same reason Kotohime isn't confronted by Remilia). You should also remember that Sakuya canonically does things like try to buy a replacement broken teacup or try to open a window on a spaceship, so crazy ninja skills aside, she has her embarassing moments. _

_I like the idea that Flandre wasn't locked in the basement. I'm not sure if it's canonically accurate, but my thinking is Big Sis' words would be a lot better at keeping her down there than any number of metal bars. _

_Hope you enjoyed this (if not, you have my sympathy for struggling through forty-something pages of my drivel), and see you next chapter.  
><em>


	5. Kotohime and the Mission to Makai

**_Kotohime and the Mission to Makai_**

Streaks of light tore across the sky, sizzling and sparking with raw power, leaving behind retinal afterimages and the bitter tang of ozone. Screaming fireballs split the heavens, wailing like damned souls and promising a searing cataclysm for anything unfortunate enough to be in their way. Shifting patterns of energy formed an ever-changing barrier between the world of mortals and the gods above, a writhing design of such complexity that the human mind would break trying to comprehend it all at once.

In most places such a sight would herald the End Times. In Gensokyo…

"Oh, looks like she's busy." Kotohime sighed and put down her beach bag with a heavy thump. The gaudy pink satchel flopped over onto its side, spilling pocketbooks, sunscreen, and a bottle of wine onto the stone path leading to the Hakurei Shrine. The princess fumbled with her parasol, sticking it in the crook of her arm as she adjusted her huge floppy sun hat in the shade of the big red torii that formed a freestanding gate between the temple grounds and the rest of Gensokyo.

The man waiting on the other side of the wooden arch peered at her almost in disbelief. She was unusual in a lot of respects – her long silky hair was a rich shade of red matched by her eyes, partially bound in a bushy ponytail by a length of yellow silken thread, with two long sidelocks framing her face and dangling down to her breasts. Her clothes were those of a wealthy noblewoman, flowing formal robes of deep purple over white, imprinted with red floral patterns. They jarred horribly with her banana-colored hat and the tacky star-shaped sunglasses with neon green rims she was wearing near the tip of her nose.

Kotohime slipped off the offending shades and deftly closed them with a quick flick of her wrist, nonchalantly leaning against her side of the gate to watch the light show above. "How long's she been going at it?" she asked the man.

Her fellow onlooker, an older gentleman a decade or so past middle age, cleared his throat uncomfortably and tried to stand at attention. "Ah, not long, princess" he said in a somewhat scratchy voice, the bump on his throat bobbing as he swallowed. "I'd say it got started less than a minute before you showed up."

"Hmm." Kotohime winced as an explosion overhead momentarily added an extra shadow to everything nearby. "Do we know who Reimu's throwing down with this time?"

"Can't say I do, miss," the man said respectfully. "I expect a youkai of some sort, but as for which one-"

"Yeah, hard to tell from down here and I'm not about to fly up to take a closer look." Gensokyo's resident princess and policewoman shaded her eyes and she stared up at the spectacular aerial duel. "And I'm not sure if that's one of Reimu's spell cards or not, which isn't to say I'd be able to tell who she was fighting if it wasn't." She idly toed a flagstone with a sandaled foot. Then a thought seemed to occur to her, and she looked over at the man suspiciously. "Hey, who are you anyway?"

"Just a carpenter, your highness. Teiji Tanaka's the name," he said, respectfully touching the brim of his conical straw hat. It was only then that Kotohime noticed the bag of tools resting at his feet and the short stack of lumber beside it. "Miss Reimu sent for me to fix a hole in the roof." The man flashed an uncertain smile as he gestured up at the battle overhead. "Maybe she found whoever made it?" he suggested.

"Hell hath no fury like a miko whose shrine has been desecrated," Kotohime agreed sagely. "Except for, you know, actual demons and stuff. And certain gods, of course. And mad scientists with legions of homicidal robots. I could go on but I won't."

The man chuckled awkwardly and scratched at his graying beard, avoiding eye contact.

"Guess I'll have to go on without her." Kotohime looked down at her bag and then at Teiji. "Well, I wasn't planning on hauling this myself, so here, have a picnic," she ordered as she practically shoved the load into the surprised man's arms. "And take these for the sun," she said while adding her umbrella to the pile and putting her horrifying sun hat on top of the man's traditional straw headwear.

"You're too kind," said Teiji unconvincingly as his eyes flickered up at his noble amassment of hats. Kotohime was already gone.

-x-

* * *

><p>-2-<p>

Kotohime flew low, just over the forest canopy – though the sun was beating down fiercely, the shade of the woods offered no respite, as the heat somehow got trapped under the leaves to smother any interlopers. She tried not to be distracted by the danmaku duel lighting up the sky behind her, and concentrated on remembering Koakuma's directions.

Within minutes the princess had reached the quiet solitude of the grassy hills near Gensokyo's hinterlands, the aerial battle over the Hakurei Shrine little more than a distant thunderhead. She paused for a moment, scanning the terrain, until she spotted her destination. It was pretty obvious, really – there were more than few caves dotting the rocky tors and weathered mountains near the Boundary that separated Gensokyo from the mundane world, but none that were so obviously sealed up.

Kotohime's robes fluttered as she gracefully descended to land before her objective, peering at the barrier with interest. A solid sheet of strange red stone stood just inside the cave's mouth, studded with yellowing paper charms and bearing a tattered message: "Sealed by the authority of the Hakurei Shrine, KEEP OUT." A smaller note underneath it added "Seriously, don't go in the forbidden cave of tantalizing mystery - M. K."

The princess frowned for a moment, upset that no one had thought to have her add an _official_ edict forbidding access to the cave, though on the other hand that would make her actions today kind of hypocritical. She looked around, pondering her next move. There wasn't a doorknob or anything, and whatever material blocked off the cave's mouth had a certain indestructible look to it. Her eyes drifted across the sheet of stone to the rocks of the cave proper, particularly the ground forming the cave's roof.

She smiled to herself.

Whistling cheerfully, Kotohime removed a bulky satchel from her waist and briefly took to the air, setting her clinking load down on top of the cave, a few meters past the red barrier. Next she unraveled the long spool of cable she'd brought along, plugged one end into the satchel, and, still whistling, laid a line fifty paces from the bag to the shelter of a nearby massive boulder. With one last look at her target, she ducked down under cover, stuck the other end of the line into the little detonator she withdrew from her sleeve, and pushed the button.

The sound that resulted was less like an explosion and more like the roar of an angry god. Or possibly a dragon, Kotohime mentally amended, having recently become familiar with such creatures. The blast echoed across the hills of Gensokyo long after the last bit of debris finished falling from the sky.

When all the ruckus was over Kotohime popped out of cover and strolled over to view her handiwork. It was quite impressive, really – the troublesome seal itself was still intact, completely untouched by the explosion, but there was now a rough hole blown in the roof of the cave just behind it.

Kotohime nodded with the satisfaction of a job well done, stepped up off the ground, and floated cautiously down through the new entrance she'd made.

It was dark, much darker than it had any right to be – sunlight simply terminated at the circle of light falling through the hole in the ceiling, and didn't reflect off the cave's walls or anything. After taking a moment to try and get her eyes to adjust, Kotohime stepped forward into the gloom, noticing that even though she couldn't see the floor beneath her or the walls surrounding her, she herself remained as well-lit as though she were still outside. Weird.

Before she could conjure a magical light source to help see her surroundings, Kotohime noticed some faint red embers around her, like tiny scattered stars. Then her other senses chimed in – she couldn't feel a draft or breeze like would be found in normal caves, and there was no sense of where the walls or floor were around her. For all she could tell she'd dropped into an endless void.

Which was all to be expected, really, Kotohime reminded herself as she boldly flew onward into the field of red stars. This was no ordinary cave, but a doorway, a place where the walls between worlds were thin, where someone of sufficient power could leave Gensokyo behind and travel to a different place entirely: a land of demons and darkness that was inherently hostile to humankind. Before it was sealed off from the world of man (and princesses), only the most powerful of magicians would travel to this place, where they hoped to improve themselves through the grueling trials of mere survival.

So it ought to a breeze for someone like herself, Kotohime decided.

She drifted further into that starry expanse, until the cave's new skylight had receded to a small point of white light far behind her, one more star among many. Kotohime was beginning to wonder just how many miles longer she'd have to fly when she noticed that the pinpoints of lights in front of her seemed arranged in some sort of pattern, a vaguely hexagonal shape around a wide patch of empty space.

This looked like the place Koakuma had described. Kotohime withdrew a scroll from her sleeve and unfurled it, happily noting that it was just as illuminated as the rest of her, even if that didn't significantly aid its legibility. The letters on the ancient parchment were hooked, serpentine shapes that nevertheless had a passing resemblance to Japanese. The assistant librarian of the Scarlet Devil Mansion had assured Kotohime that the pronunciation wasn't too different. Now it was time to put those words to the test.

The princess cleared her throat, the sound falling into the expanse around her without echoing, and held the page out at arm's length before beginning to read. "_Ixt shrrlm tnnth_… good gods, someone buy these people a vowel. _Ixt shrrl__**n**__ tmmth? Ist shrlln?_"

Kotohime scowled at the scroll, as if she could force it to make sense if she glared at it hard enough. She wasn't sure if the long-dead author's handwriting was bad or the dialect itself was fouling her up, but in either case the incantation wasn't working.

So she shrugged and rotated the sheet ninety degrees. "_Bit'zu teneri yolgog…_" Kotohime looked up when she felt a faint tingle of arcane power, but nothing else seemed to be happening. She sighed and rotated the page again. _"Rosu shika sekuma-_"

Kotohime hadn't even started pronouncing the fourth word when she was buffeted by a barrage of thunderclaps. In the split-second she'd spent blinking from the sudden sound, a dozen or so armored figures had materialized to surround her, their pointing polearms forming an inescapable ring of spiky death, unless she felt like flying over or under them.

Superficially, they looked monstrous. They stood – well, floated - noticeably taller than the average human, and roughly half of them sported either feathered or bat-like wings protruding from gaps in their backplates. Their horns and tusks, visages twisted by demonic leers, and gaping fanged mouths all made them quite intimidating… until Kotohime looked closer and realized that their "mouths" were the sculpted faceplates of their helmets, and between the gaps of their dark, spiky armor they looked as soft and non-threatening as humans.

"You would be wise to turn back now, mortal girl," one of them rumbled, his voice given an ominous metallic reverb by his mask. "Flee while you can and we may show you mercy for intr-"

"You guys must be Makai's welcome wagon," interrupted Kotohime, grinning cheerily. "That's a relief, I was wondering if I was in the right place."

A slightly shorter figure off to Kotohime's left bristled. "We are the honored guardians of our homeland," came an indignant female voice, "entrusted by Lady Shinki herself with the safety-"

"Hey, could you put the weapons up?" Kotohime cut in. "Someone could lose an eye, even though those look purely ornamental." She leaned forward and squinted at the nearest blade on a stick. "Yeah, lookit 'em, those blades are waaaay to thin to hold up in combat. And all those useless spikes!" She clucked in disapproval. "Yes, style counts, but form should follow function first and foremost."

The Makaijin soldiers shifted uncertainly, some raising their halberds at rest, others lowering them slightly. Helmed heads turned towards the one who had spoken first, their unspoken questions almost audible.

"Look, you-" the squad's leader started, but Kotohime cut him off with an annoyed look.

"And maybe take off your helmet? I like to see the faces of the people I talk to."

The demon guard hesitated for a moment, but ultimately complied, holding his weapon one-handed as he pulled off his helm to reveal the lean, angular face of a young supermodel under a flowing mane of blond hair.

"Why hel-_loooooo_," purred the princess, suddenly very interested. "My oh my, they make them bishie in Makai, don't they?" she said approvingly, a hungry smile creeping onto her face.

The heartthrob seemed embarrassed, his amber eyes looking away from Kotohime. "We are, ah, as the Lady Shinki made us," he replied nervously in a tenor that was as pleasing to the ears as his face was to the eye.

No wonder they struggled to project an air of bestial menace with that armor, Kotohime mused. The comely demon floated backwards a bit, intimidated by her lusty stare.

Kotohime toyed with the end of her ponytail, fluttering her eyelashes coyly. "So, do you have a name, hotness?"

He was still avoiding eye contact. "Daniel," he admitted.

"And you're not by any chance an incubus, are you?" asked Kotohime with a wicked grin. "Eh? _Eh? _Bow-chicka-bow-wow?" One of the other guards stifled a laugh.

"Idiot!" With an exasperated growl the cranky soldier standing next to the now-bareheaded commander shoved him aside, darting in to take his place in front of the intruder. A ripple of unease went through the ring of guardians at the breakdown in command, but the demoness ignored it, pointing an accusing finger at Kotohime. "_You_ need to leave this cave immediately or face the consequences, _human_, whoever you are!" she snarled.

The human in question blinked in surprise. "Oh that's right, I was so busy imagining running my fingers through his silky tresses that I haven't introduced myself! How rude of me." She offered the demons a deep and formal bow. "I am Kotohime, princess of Gensokyo, on a diplomatic mission to meet with the lady of Makai. Can you take me to see her, please?"

The demoness narrowed her icy blue eyes, the only part of her Kotohime could see with all that armor – aside from her feathered wings, of course, which were a shade of white with just a tinge of pink. "The Lady Shinki is not receiving envoys at this time," the soldier said, "as should be obvious from the seal over the cave entrance. Now I suggest you take your leave of this place, _princess,_" she spat.

The two stared at each other for a moment, then Kotohime sighed. "I was afraid of this. Very well, I shall cease this deception. I am not-"

"Not a real princess, yes, I had assumed that much," the demoness interrupted with a contemptuous glare.

"I am not here on a diplomatic mission," Kotohime said as though the other woman hadn't spoken. "That was a fabrication to gain entry to Makai. I am Kotohime, police chief of Gensokyo, here to investigate a crime."

That bombshell earned a surprised murmuring from the crowd of soldiers surrounding the red-haired woman. "You are brave indeed, to so brazenly announce that you intend to spy on us," Daniel chuckled.

Kotohime nodded in agreement. "A fact you would do well to reflect upon."

The demon's mirth vanished. "Explain," he ordered.

"There are two possibilities," the princess began, smiling and spreading her arms wide as she addressed the ring of Makaijin surrounding her. "The first is that I am an extremely foolish woman hoping to use her wiles to gain entry to a very dangerous realm through the audacious bluff of claiming to be on a diplomatic mission. I would do this because I am too weak to force my way inside, and if _that_ is the case, you have nothing to fear. Any person unable to overcome Makai's first line of defense would have little hope of crossing a land blanketed in a dangerous miasma and home to a host of demons. To say nothing of surviving an encounter with the goddess who created Makai in the first place."

Some of the otherworldly soldiers grunted their agreement, relaxing.

"The _other_ possibility," Kotohime went on, "is that I am incredibly powerful." The demons sobered up quickly. "In this scenario, I do not fear the dangers of Makai, be it from its guardians, environment, population, or even Shinki herself. The only reason I have not blasted you gatekeepers into a cloud of vapor would be a glimmer of restraint or a disinclination for pointless violence on my part. I would be giving you the chance to step aside and preserve your lives, rather than snuffing you out like candles before continuing on my way."

She fell silent for several seconds, letting this sink in. Some of the demons traded worried glances.

"In either case," Kotohime concluded, "you have nothing to lose by letting me pass. If I am weak, I am as good as dead, and if I am strong, you could not hope to stop me anyway and would be saving yourselves from a pointless death. So," she said, clapping her hands brightly, "let's get that portal open, eh?"

There was a moment's pause as the demons looked at one another, then at their fresh-faced leader, searching for answers that weren't forthcoming... all except one. The blue-eyed demoness brandished her halberd as she slowly advanced towards Kotohime. "I shall enjoy this, outsider," she breathed, almost trembling with anticipation-

And then Daniel's well-manicured hand fell heavily on her shoulder. "Corporal," he warned as he gave her a stern look. "I have not given an order to attack."

"But she-"

"_Stand down_."

The two demons stared at each other, and Kotohime was looking forward to a fight. But Angry Girl backed down, abruptly turning on her heels and sweeping back into formation with an overly-loud flap of her pinkish-white wings.

Daniel's burst of authority lasted until his gaze shifted back to Kotohime, and his face twisted with uncertainty while his subordinate stood rigidly at attention behind him, cold fury radiating from her like reverse heat.

"Perhaps we should let her pass?" a different demon woman suggested. "Since she _did_ say she was on a diplomatic mission, right?"

"Yes, we _obviously_ couldn't send her to see Lady Shinki," another chimed in, "but we could at least let her in to talk to the foreign minister. Give her something to do."

The head guard licked his lips. "Ah, yes, that was my thinking exactly," he said perhaps a little too eagerly. "You may enter," he told Kotohime.

Daniel nodded at one of his subordinates, who made a gesture at the patch of dark space in the hexagon of stars. Immediately an ethereal wind blasted Kotohime's hair as a burgundy-colored vortex materialized like a galaxy spinning on its side, a man-sized distortion through time and space. It made a low roaring sound as it slowly revolved in place, waiting for Kotohime to leap inside.

The crowd of armed and armored demons parted, its members watching Kotohime with a mixture of wonder and fear – save for one glaring Makai woman. The princess gave them a sleepy smile and quick bow before floating towards the portal. Just as she was about to dive in, however, she paused and turned to face the blond demon one last time.

"Call me," she mouthed, winking flirtatiously and holding up a fist with her thumb and pinky finger extended towards her ear and mouth respectively. Then with a whoop of excitement she dove into the vortex.

-x-

* * *

><p>-3-<p>

Kotohime's duties as a princess and policewoman had led her into a variety of portals over the years, and she wasn't particularly impressed with this one. The constant wind buffering her hair and robes got annoying pretty quickly and kept her from hearing any other, more interesting sounds. The visuals weren't bad, though – it looked like she was whizzing through space, stars flying past at angles that changed from moment to moment, as though she were zig-zagging as she careened through the heavens. And rather than a sensation of falling it felt more like she was being pulled in a current towards a distinct destination, as if she was floating down some rapids.

All in all, she reflected, it wasn't as interesting as time travel tunnels, but better than alternate universe quantum tunnels.

After the first minute Kotohime started to wish there was a cloud of fairies or something to shoot at, or that the guards had felt brave enough to escort her. That segued into a nice daydream involving Daniel and melted chocolate, and then before she knew it she was in Makai.

The stars abruptly vanished, leaving Kotohime floating high in the air over a wide river valley winding between gentle hills. A cluster of lights on either side of where the water was at its narrowest was almost certainly a city, but other than that, everything was purple – the sky was a shade of mulberry, with darker clouds and a slight reddish tint on the horizon. The river was almost the exact same color as the sky above, making the two seem to run together in the distance, and the hills and buildings were both a slightly-darker shade of violet. If there was a sun Kotohime couldn't see it, though one might explain the red tinge at the bottom of the sky.

A cool breeze teased her hair, but also made it clear that the very air was different here – thicker, richer. Just breathing it threatened to give Kotohime a rush. If this was Makai's infamous "miasma" she should bottle it and sell it back home. It certainly didn't feel poisonous to breathe, even if the smell was a little off. It was… Kotohime searched for a metaphor, and decided that it smelled like you felt when you'd only gotten three hours of sleep but had just taken a hit of coffee and could feel the energy exploding into you while knowing that you were going to hurt like hell in a few hours when you came crashing down. That was _exactly_ what Makai's miasma smelled like.

She realized that she was getting off-track and shook herself, her face set with purpose. She was on a rescue mission, after all. A life could depend on the results of her investigation.

It was certainly a shame she had no idea where to go.

She waited a couple of minutes to see if the guards were going to follow her in, but that didn't happen. Apparently she was supposed to see an interior minister of some sort, but they'd forgotten to give her directions.

So Kotohime headed towards the city.

-x-

* * *

><p>-4-<p>

The princess still couldn't tell what time of day it was in Makai, so she couldn't say whether the lack of visibility was due to nightfall or simply the ever-present haze in the air. Whatever the reason, it kept her from getting a good sense of the demon city's architecture, or seeing what lay on the other side of the hills lining the river valley. It also meant that the party caught her by surprise.

Kotohime eventually noticed that one cluster of lights she was flying towards was coming at her much more quickly than the others behind it. She dropped altitude and sure enough, the lights moved up over the city and against the skyline. It looked like there was a cluster of irregularly-shaped platforms hanging in the air, smooth, curved shapes like a sandbar when the tide was rolling in. And after catching a burst of distant laughter, Kotohime decided that whoever was on them was having a good time.

Well, Kotohime liked to have a good time, too. She smiled and accelerated.

Dozens of overlapping conversations grew louder as the princess approached, and Kotohime could make our more details. There were a half dozen or so platforms in all, made from some unidentifiable dull silvery material, each bearing a cluster of tables and in two cases what looked like buffet lines. Kotohime detected scents on the breeze besides Makai's miasma, some of which made her mouth water, others that made her sinuses crinkle and her teeth throb. She tried to convince her stomach that the otherworldly food was inedible while reminding her head that she was invincible.

Everywhere there were demons, standing together talking, seated at the tables, leaning against the railings bordering each platform, or flying to and fro. In contrast to the baroque armor of the gatekeeping force, Kotohime noticed that the dress code seemed similar to businesswear beyond Gensokyo's border – ties and jackets and coats and sensible skirts, albeit modified to accommodate wings in some cases. Aside from that, some vivid hair colors, and the occasional set of feathered or leathery pinions, the crowd wouldn't have been out of place in the mundane world. It looked like a perfectly normal office party that just happened to be airborne.

Kotohime felt almost cheated. These demons didn't even have horns, and more than half of them were completely wingless! And where were the hellfire and the sinister statues to dark gods? She'd been in Makai for almost ten minutes and she hadn't found even a single damned soul. The whole thing made storming the gates of hell as impressive as going out for milk. If someone didn't try to kill her over the course of her investigation, Kotohime was going to be very disappointed.

Well, she should try to make the most of the situation. Kotohime swooped down to make her grand entrance, arcing up from under the partygoers' line of sight and landing right on the edge of the nearest floating platform in an empty patch of ground bracketed by surprisingly normal-looking iron lampposts. As her sandaled feet gently touched down on the indescribable material, Kotohime folded her arms with a faint smile on her lips, her luxurious robes settling around her, the very image of a perfect monarch – imperious, mysterious, confident. "I am Kotohime, princess of Gensokyo," she announced grandly. "Take me to your leader."

A ripple of silence spread out from her, as about two dozen well-dressed demons and demonesses stared at the newcomer. Then a man laughed.

That seemed to do it, triggering a cascade of good-natured giggles and guffaws. A red-faced man with large spectacles clapped Kotohime on the shoulder, spilling some of whatever was in the glass down the front of his pants, but he didn't seem to notice. "Yeah, yeah, and I'm the Empress of, of China!" he hiccupped.

"And I'm the Yama of Xanadu!" shouted a shrill-voiced little woman.

That made Kotohime lurch with surprise, but to her relief the speaker had bright orange hair, not green. And then the partygoers encircling her just sort of lost interest, resuming their previous conversations.

The princess quietly fumed, considering lobbing a grenade or two into the festivities in order to get these people to take her seriously, but Kotohime reminded herself that she was trying to be diplomatic. So she nonchalantly strolled into the midst of the Makaijin, quietly listening in on their conversations. There was a lot of talk about some sort of project and something being activated, but nothing about, say, high-value prisoners of war or the locations, layouts, and weaknesses of Makai's detention centers.

A well-groomed demon in a snappy black suit offered her a selection from a tray of drinks, but Kotohime politely declined, unsure if the Makai brew wouldn't melt through her stomach. That's when someone gently tapped her on her arm to get her attention.

Turning, Kotohime saw a demoness in an olive green pantsuit, her curly hair the color of seaweed, a cautiously friendly smile on her admittedly attractive face. "Uh, hello," she said, her body language suggesting she could fly away at any moment.

"Bonjour!" the princess replied brightly.

The demon woman nervously tucked a clump of hair behind an ear. "Um. Were you serious, earlier? About being from Gensokyo?"

"Darn skippy," Kotohime assured her with a curt nod. "I'm one hundred percent authentic Gensokyan princess."

"And you're human?"

"I'd say _super _human," Kotohime corrected, "but technically, yeah, _homo sapiens_. _Nobilis. Equitas. Awesomus. Rex._"

"And this isn't a joke?" the woman pressed, still suspicious.

Kotohime scratched the back of her neck. "I don't like showing off my powers, but if it'll convince you… everyone, stand back!" she commanded, her voice resonating with authority. Several partygoers having an animated chat behind her found themselves moving away almost before they realized it. As another hush fell over the crowd, Kotohime put herself in a wide stance, her arms out from her sides. "Demons of Makai, behold as I… _age!_"

She went perfectly still for ten seconds, the surrounding Makaijin watching her closely as she stared forward with a look of utmost concentration on her face. Then someone started a round of polite applause, interspaced again with laughter.

"Did _you_ hire her?" someone asked behind Kotohime. "Seriously, where did you find her? Does she do birthdays?"

"Isn't she from Finances?" another suggested. "Akemi or something?"

The princess chose to ignore it, and walked over to her new friend. "So, convinced yet?" she asked.

"I'm not sure what to say," said the Makai woman with a weak chuckle. "I guess I may as well introduce myself, since you have already. I'm Telma," she said, extending her hand in a reassuringly familiar gesture. The princess gave it a good shake.

"Like I said, Kotohime. I just kind of blundered into you folks while flying over the river," she admitted. "Couldn't resist crashing, sorry."

"Oh, you're fine," the other woman assured her. "People have been coming and going all night, and it's not like anyone's keeping track." She waved at a couple who proved her point by diving over the platform's edge and coasting towards the distant city. Then she bit her lip for a few seconds before seeming to reach a decision. "Uh, shall we go somewhere more quiet to chat?" she asked, flapping an arm at an unoccupied stretch of railing.

"Good plan." Kotohime followed her over, trading bright smiles with those she passed. "So what's the occasion for the night's festivities, Miss Telma?" she asked as she took her place leaning against the railing.

"Oh, you don't know? But it was in the papers and everything, and I even wrote some of the advertisements for…" Telma coughed apologetically. "That's right, you're a human from the outside world," though she still didn't sound convinced. "Well, uh, it's all because we got the plant up and running."

"Good for you!" beamed the princess, patting the other woman on the back companionably. "I myself have had little luck with gardening-"

"The _power_ plant, sorry," the demoness clarified. "It's Makai's first hydroelectric generator!"

"Oh." Kotohime maintained a pleasant smile as she wracked her brain. "That's the one where there's a water wheel, and bits turn, and electricity comes out, right?"

Telma laughed, a good lusty laugh, Kotohime decided. "Don't worry, I have no idea how it works either. I work in marketing, you know? Make fliers and brochures, give presentations to investors? But it's certainly a great accomplishment!"

"Oh, certainly," Kotohime agreed, nodding eagerly.

"That's nice of you to say," the green-haired demoness replied, smiling. "Even though you humans have been building things like that for a hundred years."

"Not me _personally_," Kotohime admitted. "I mean, I still haven't figured out how our fusion plant works-"

Telma made a face like her companion had just sprouted a second head. "Wait, _what?_"

"I know, man!" said Kotohime, flapping her heavy sleeves helplessly. "I still can't get over how we're apparently in the Fusion Age now. And of course nobody told _me_ until weeks afterward, not that I knew which Age we were in beforehand. What was before coal? We jumped like three tech levels overnight."

"But… _fusion_?" Telma's mind was clearly still in mid-boggle. "How does _that_ work?"

"No idea. But if it makes you feel any better," Kotohime went on, stepping close and dropping her voice to a conspiratorial whisper, "I think we cheated. One of our local deities got another to help out."

"Oh, _magical _power." An almost relieved smile crept onto Telma's face. "Well. That's a little less impressive. You know, we've had electricity since almost before mortals had figured it out," she informed Kotohime. "The only reason we're excited over this hydro plant is because it's our first entirely non-magical generator."

"Ah. So you can survive on magic alone, but you're purposefully holding back to test yourself," summarized Kotohime. She smiled. "Brings to mind an old friend of mine."

"And, uh..." Telma looked around furtively and lowered her voice. "And nobody really likes to admit it, but we're competing against some other societies for the title of 'masters of science and the arcane.' Certain _extraterrestrial_ societies."

The princess' nose wrinkled. "Oh, the Lunarians. Those smarmy bastards."

A faint smile flitted across Telma's face. "You said it, not me."

"Well, I shouldn't. Some Lunarians can be nearly tolerable company. See we've got an exiled princess kicking around Gensokyo," Kotohime explained, "and she's kind of cool. Laid-back, good fashion sense, maybe a _little_ bit odd, but she _is_ a foreigner - is something wrong?" she asked as Telma suffered a coughing fit.

The demon woman waved an arm as she straightened up, her face twitching. "It's nothing, please continue."

"Okies," shrugged Kotohime. "Anyway, our Lunarian comes by the village from time to time and people seem to get along with her okay, certainly better than some of the youkai that drop by. All in all I'd say she's a credit to her people. If only she'd join the force..." The princess scratched the side of her head for a moment, then shrugged. "Though on the other hand she probably counts as an illegal alien. That reminds me, I really need to crack down on immigration. People keep popping across the Border without the proper documentation." She noticed Telma's stare. "I'm sorry, I'm dominating the conversation, aren't I?"

Telma shook herself out of the long, speculative look she was giving Kotohime. "Oh, it's not that. It's just... you really _aren't _from around here, are you? You're really human?"

"Don't ask me to do the aging trick again," Kotohime said flatly. "I like my 'keep-them-guessing' youthful beauty, thank you very much."

"Wow. I have to admit, I thought you were joking, but you…" Telma took a step back, steadying herself against the metal fence ringing the floating party, which noisily continued around them. "That's kind of a big deal."

"Or more accurately _I'm_ kind of a big deal," the princess corrected. "So, gonna call the police on me?" she asked, arching an eyebrow speculatively.

"Oh don't worry, I've nothing against humans," Telma said quickly. "Honestly? I'd _love_ to visit your world someday."

"It's not _all_ mine," corrected Kotohime, "but yeah, it's pretty awesome."

"I almost went on one of the tours, you know?" Telma continued. "But I kept putting it off, kept finding excuses. And then came the, uh…"

Kotohime smiled. "We call them Incidents."

"I guess that's as good a term as any." Telma lifted her head to gaze up at Makai's dark, cloudy skies. "Some of my coworkers went on a tour and told me about the human world. Blue skies, everything else is green, a big light floating above you… so weird! And then that 'incident' of yours happened and put a stop to it." She sighed regretfully. "Poor Louise. She's a girl in my department who was signed up for a tour, but, uh, she had the misfortune to encounter the intruders that day," she explained.

The other woman winced in sympathy. "Ouchies. Reimu to the face before the spell card rules came out. Yeah, that could leave some psychological scarring."

"Oh, she's fine," Telma assured her. "She was back in the office within a week, and even after everything that happened she still wants to have a proper tour. You know, as soon as the travel ban is lifted." Realization dawned. "Wait a minute, if _you're_ here, does that mean we've opened up contact with the humans again?"

"I'd say it's more like the humans are contacting you!" joked Kotohime. That got a chuckle out of the demoness, and more importantly distracted her from that train of though. "Heck, there may be some humans who'd want to travel to Makai!" the princess went on.

"Besides the odd magicians and hermits, you mean? I guess you're right. Even if they wouldn't marvel at our out-of-date power plant, they could at least see the sights."

Mentally, Kotohime jumped up and down, cackling. "Oh?" she said, struggling to sound casual. "Like what? Maybe you could give me some directions?"

"Oh, goodness, I'm not much of a travel guide," said Telma with a nervous laugh. "Well, uh, I guess there's something in Makai for everyone. If you like nature there's the crystal forests, the marshes, that sort of stuff. Plenty of shopping in the cities, of course. If you like historic stuff and are willing to make the trip past the wastes, there's Vina, a bunch of old ruins. I think it was a battlefield."

Kotohime considered it for a few moments before remembering that she'd left her archeology kit at home. "I recall someone mentioning a certain place," she said conversationally, "what was it called, Hokkai?"

The demon woman jerked with surprise. "Oh! Um, no, you can't go there. It's about as remote as you can get. Not to mention strictly forbidden."

A dangerous smile flitted across Kotohime's face. "And now you've caught my interest."

"Well, I _strongly_ advise that you contain your curiosity," Telma warned, wagging a finger with disapproval. "There's some dangerous things being held in Hokkai. It's a moot point, really, the whole place is sealed off from the rest of Makai. And the rest of _anything_, for that matter."

"Mmmm _hmmm_…" The princess tapped a finger against her chin, considering. Yes, a demonic maximum-security prison would be the most obvious and logical place to hold who she was looking for. Her eyes narrowed. "Or maybe that's what they _want_ me to think," she said darkly.

"Huh?"

"So, any other must-see sites?" Kotohime asked instead of answering.

Telma frowned with concentration, then bopped herself in the forehead with the heel of her hand. "I _must_ have had too much to drink. Yeah, if you're visiting Makai, you definitely shouldn't miss Pandæmonium, the old capital," she said, gesturing past the mountains on the other side of the river valley.

The princess nodded sagely while quickly memorizing the direction in relation to the local landmarks. "Where your goddess lives, right?"

"Yep. Like I said, it was the capital until we outgrew it, plus the fighting had ended so we didn't need to live in a fortress any more. Now it's the Lady Shinki's private demesne."

_And private dungeons_, Kotohime mentally added. Her heart started beating faster just thinking about it. "Sounds like a very interesting destination."

"Oh it is," the demoness agreed, nodding enthusiastically. "Marvelous architecture, and the lands around it are like nothing else. I've been several times."

The princess blinked in surprise. "She lets you poke around?"

"Of course! Every Makaijin goes to visit the goddess at least once in her life, and some go many times a year." Telma smiled serenely, lost in a pleasant memory. "She's… well, it's hard to explain to outsiders. She's like a mother and best friend and goddess all combined in one. She knows you better than you know yourself, and loves you unconditionally. And she's always eager to see visitors." The wistful smile faded. "Or rather, she used to be…"

"I think I understand."

Telma looked downcast. "She hasn't been the same since the incident, as you called it. She doesn't talk about it, but you can tell she blames herself."

"I can't help but feel somewhat responsible," said Kotohime, toeing the floor dejectedly.

"Well, that's not quite fair," Telma said, placing a hand on the princess' shoulder. "You're not the one who attacked us."

"True. But I _may_ have given the Makai travel agency the impression that Gensokyo embraced cultural diversity and would be thrilled to have demonic tourists," admitted Kotohime. "And then I _may_ have forgotten to let anyone else know that a bunch of demons were about to show up and poke around."

In the long pause that followed, Kotohime glumly noted how often she'd seen _that_ face, the one with the mouth hanging open slightly and one eyebrow arched, as though expressions of shock and horror had hit at the same time and gotten mashed up. Sure, it was kind of funny at first, but it quickly lost its charm, especially if you ended up seeing it multiple times in a single day.

"Well, it's been a real pleasure, not to mention educational," she said to fill the silence, "but I should probably get moving. There might be people with a less accepting attitude towards-"

"Excuse me!" boomed a voice from the other end of the platform. "Your attention, please!" The party's background conversations trailed off. "There is no cause for alarm," the male speaker continued, "but we have reason to believe that there is a human amongst you."

An excited murmur rose from the crowded platforms, and one or two people burst out laughing. "Oh, this is _much_ better than that murder mystery banquet they tried last year," a woman near Kotohime commented.

"Remain calm!" the voice urged the citizens of Makai. "We are simply searching the premises for this fugitive. We do not believe that you are in any danger. Please do not impede us in our work."

"And that sounds like my cue to skedaddle," Kotohime said, bouncing on her heels. "Thank you very much for your help, Miss Telma, you've been most informative."

"My pleasure," Telma replied. "I just hope you don't cause – er, get into too much trouble," she amended with a lopsided grin.

"Oh, that all depends on if I get caught or-"

"You there! Freeze!"

Kotohime rolled her eyes while Telma laughed. "That was _uncanny,_" the demoness giggled.

"I know, right? Like the universe is listening to what I say so it can do things to me at the most ironic moments." Sighing, Kotohime turned around to behold the eight-man squad that had come to apprehend her.

Her first thought was to hire whoever'd done their uniforms. The pants were kind of loose around the thighs like riding leggings, the shirts had a stylishly off-center vertical row of shiny buttons that ended in a flap bent outwards, and the fabric was a rich red that Kotohime was certain would accessorize perfectly with her wardrobe. Nice caps, too, very sharp. Maybe that's what she was doing wrong, expecting people to recognize her authority without looking like a policewoman. Sure, she liked her robes, but every bit of gravitas helped, right?

Their leader, a bat-winged man with dark hair and eyes and a trim little goatee, pointed at the intruder. "You are under arrest for unlawful entry. Come quietly or we will be forced to… use force," he finished lamely. His eyes darted about as he became aware of the crowd of Makaijin encircling the scene to get a better view of the evening's entertainment, and to make up for his poor wording he reached down and brandished his-

"_You guys use jitte?"_ squealed Kotohime, her fingertips to her lips. Then she let out a keening cry and did a little excited dance in place.

The Makai policemen stared uncomprehendingly while the crowd of bystanders laughed.

"You're the _first guys_ I've met who use them too," sniffled Kotohime, near tears. She drew her own nonlethal weapon and brandished it in a show of solidarity, making the guards recoil. "Hell, you're probably the first people I've met who even _know_ what they are. Everyone else just thinks it's some sort of club or that I'm going to play baseball or something," she lamented. "Most of them don't even bother to ask what it is or why it's so important – excuse me." She reached down a sleeve, withdrew a silk handkerchief, and blew her nose with a _blort_.

The squad's leader gave the men next to him an uncomprehending look as their suspect dabbed at her eyes with another hanky. "Miss," he said firmly, "I won't ask you again-"

"Oh hey, you got little wingies on your head too," said Kotohime, ignoring the sergeant to stare at a slightly taller demon standing at his side. "Are you related to Koakuma?" she asked. "And do those wings actually do anything, or are they just for show? Hell, why do you even need wings in the first place if everyone can fly without them?"

"_Miss_," the squad leader repeated. "I'm warning you, put your weapon away and put your hands behind your head."

"Oh right, I'm under arrest. Well, normally I'd comply," said Kotohime regretfully. "I'm a firm believer in the rule of law. But today's different, I'm on a rescue mission."

"You are?" asked a surprised Telma from the sidelines.

"Yeppers," the princess admitted, not taking her eyes off her opposition. "Sorry I didn't mention it, but I didn't think you'd tell me where your prisons were if I had."

"I did _what?_"

"Anyway," continued Kotohime, cracking her knuckles, "I'm going to have to turn things around and demand that _you_ guys put your weapons away and stand aside, lest I be forced to use my violence on you," she told the uniformed group confronting her.

"You're bluffing," the infernal policeman told her, pointing his _jitte_ accusingly. "There's only one of you-"

"May I remind you that two humans were among the group that blasted its way through your defenses and humbled your goddess?" Kotohime pointed out with an arched eyebrow. "Us humans are freakin' powerhouses. I'm out of your league. So, last chance – back off or I take you down. _In mani ylem_."

Everyone around the princess jumped back in surprise as a banana fell out of the air to land with a _plop_ in Kotohime's waiting hand. She casually started to peel the fruit.

"How did you…" the lead policeman stammered. "What are you doing? What's that-"

"I don't like to fight on an empty stomach, okay?" explained Kotohime, before she took a huge bite out of the conjured food.

"Wait, she's _really_ a human?" someone in the crowd nervously asked.

"But she looks just like us!" a woman objected.

"No," Kotohime corrected, turning to eye the demoness who spoke out, "_you_ look like _us._"

"That's what I just said!"

"Oh." The princess took another bite from her banana, chewing thoughtfully. "Obviously your goddess is an enormous copycat." She stuffed her leftovers down her sleeve, swallowed noisily, wiped her mouth on her robes, and gave the demon police force a dangerous look. "Sticking around, eh? Well, you asked for it. _Inflictus dolores diabolus gluteus maximus_," she intoned, shifting into a wrestler's crouch and slowly weaving her hands through the air in front of her, her head tilted down as she glared at her opponents through her bangs.

Most of the partygoers watching the spectacle began to shrink back. The demon police officers quickly went into battle stances of their own, standing shoulder-to-shoulder with their weapons up and ready. Their commander's face set into a stern mask. "This is you _final_ warning," he began.

"_Balatrus infernus presidius_," Kotohime interrupted. She thrust one hand skyward, releasing a shower of hissing sparks that made the surrounding crowd jump back and the police's eyes widen.

It was amazing what you could do with a little saltpeter and some glitter, Kotohime reflected. She always kept a few packets of what she called "SFX powder" down her sleeves - because you never know, do you? It had been easy to palm some while putting away the half-eaten banana.

"Hana, what is she casting?" barked the demon sergeant.

The policewoman standing at his side turned white, staring wide-eyed at Kotohime, trying to discern the meaning of her invocation. "I… I can't tell! Nothing's registering!"

"_Frustros_ _bardus constables_," continued the princess. She swirled both hands through a figure eight that released a shimmering curtain of embers, which looked totally badass and also masked her withdrawal of something from a pouch at her waist.

"_Hana!"_

"_I can't sense anything!"_ the squad's magical expert shouted, near panic.

"Well, it's been fun," Kotohime drawled. "But I think this has gone on long enough."

"_Squad, defensive stance!_" At their sergeant's words, the demon police force crouched down, summoning an overlapping shield of red, translucent hexagonal wards between them and their sorcerous attacker. "_You civilians, get out of here while you still can!_" The partygoers who hadn't fled the scene yet did so now, leaping into the sky and crying out in fear as they scattered in all directions.

"_VALETE!"_ bellowed Kotohime just before an explosion rocked the platform.

-x-

* * *

><p>-5-<p>

It was one of her low-grade bombs, something that made a lot of noise and smoke but didn't do much in the way of damage - perfect for this sort of situation. The same second the grenade had detonated, Kotohime started to move, diving towards the edge of the platform. The cloud of ash and cinders shrouded her action-packed escape as she fell into freefall, tumbling out of a sky now filled with yelling Makaijin. She almost wished she could hang around and listen to the demonic policemen's reaction, to see whether they thought she'd teleported or blown herself up in a magical mishap. It'd be great if they'd just ran for it at the sound of the bomb. Amateurs.

Ah well. Kotohime pulled out of her dive just before hitting the inky purple surface of the river, racing at full speed directly toward the nearest bank and hopefully some cover to make her disappearing act complete. She was in luck – there were craggy rocks along the shore large enough to hide a house, the stone a red so dark it was almost purple. She hunkered down out of sight, watching the cloud of distant black specks circling the floating platforms like swarming insects.

To her Makai counterparts' credit, someone quickly instilled order to the situation. Most of the dots began flying towards the lights spread like a starfield across both banks further downriver. Meanwhile others began orbiting the platforms in formations of three, presumably searching for one very dangerous and well-dressed human intruder. Then Kotohime saw a half-dozen or so flying figures taking off at great speed towards the distant horizon. Since it wasn't in the direction Telma had indicated Pandæmonium lay, Kotohime assumed some guards were on their way to Hokkai.

The policewoman grinned to herself. Perfect. Her subtle little misdirection had worked.

Sure, it'd be fun to test the defenses of the demon world's oubliette, but as Kotohime had reasoned before, it was just too obvious a place to hide her target. Not to mention the fact that Reimu and some others had broken into it less than a year ago, so undoubtedly any remaining prisoners would have long since been relocated to an intact, secure facility. And what place in Makai was more secure than the fortress of its demon queen?

Once she made sure that Makai's police force wasn't searching near the shoreline, she took to the air, flying towards what she decided was north. Because really, if it'd been _her_ creating her own personal demon realm, she'd make damn sure all the compasses pointed at her capital/fortress/pleasure palace… where well-oiled incubi like wossname would stand around in loincloths waving palm fans, as giggling handmaidens in those silky outfits made the rounds with trays of sweets…

-x-

* * *

><p>-6-<p>

The terrain gradually changed as Kotohime flew – near the shoreline it was rocky, the miasma pooling around the massive boulders like a second layer of water, with only patches of black moss for variety. But as the princess went further over the hills, she found a lush forest below, tangles of trees and bushes all shades of deep purple or murky red, shrouded in shadows. She considered dipping below the treeline for a bit of extra cover, but after hearing some of the hunting calls rising from the jungle Kotohime changed her mind. She'd safari another time, when she had the proper firepower with her, and possibly a band of grizzled mercenaries to be picked off one by one by a terrifying Makai predator before her climactic confrontation with it.

The forest lasted until she was halfway down the other side of the line of hills she'd seen when she first arrived. There was another, much smaller river in the next valley, but then Kotohime was distracted by some light. It was small, faint, and just below her, like a fallen star. Kotohime dove straight down towards it, righting herself at the last minute to stand on the ground beside it.

It was… Kotohime squatted down on her haunches and poked it tentatively. It looked like a short length of creeping vine, except one made of crystal. It was thick and rough, strangely cool to the touch, with only little nubs on its sides to suggest leaves or thorns, and it shone with a pure white light brighter than a streetlamp. Kotohime considered taking it as a sample of alien flora, remembered that certain countries had strict rules over what plant or animal life you could remove from them, and then decided that if she was already a fugitive she wouldn't mind being a fugitive with a nifty glowing plant. With a grunt she yanked it from the densely-packed earth, and wrapped the Makai vine around her upper arm under her sleeves like a luminescent bit of jewelry. The thing was heavier than she expected.

Then, as she stood up, she saw the forest.

It was nestled in the folds of the hills, shining like a sunken sun and making Kotohime wonder how she'd managed to get this far without seeing it. She immediately took off to get a closer look. They weren't quite like trees, Kotohime decided. It was more like crystals had grown to approximate tree shapes. Lone specimens stood like lampposts, while the denser clusters of crystal flora fused together, a collection of trunks holding up a thick, rough sheet of glowing gemstone. The princess peeked into the "forest" from its edges, looking into the shadowless maze beneath its shining, stony boughs, imagining what kind of wildlife could thrive there. She pictured diamond cicadas and quartz sparrows and was halfway into designing a trap for them before Kotohime remembered what she was supposed to be doing.

Regretfully she flew up and over the rough sea of shining rock, rescheduling yet another adventure so she could keep to her current course. As if that wasn't bad enough, with nothing but the wind and the scenery to pay attention to, Kotohime was feeling a little lonely. She almost wished those Makai cops had been smart enough to track her, so she could have an invigorating running battle to pass the time. Hell, she'd even settle for a cloud of fairies to shoot at. Where _were _the fairies, anyway? Makai surely had some, and the havoc she'd caused so far should have stirred them up. Didn't her invasion count as an Incident?

Frankly, she felt a bit insulted.

-x-

* * *

><p>-7-<p>

She was in Makai's highlands now, Kotohime reckoned. After passing another crystal grove and flying over the next ridge of hills, she noticed that the elevation didn't start falling away under her to form another valley. Instead the ground below was rumpled like an old blanket, with sparse purple grass and rocky outcroppings. The air was thinner, the miasma almost unnoticeable. It was getting a bit chilly, but with her thick robes and acclamation to years spent flying Kotohime wasn't too bothered yet.

The skies above had gotten darker, forming an impenetrable dome of indigo free of stars or clouds. Very foreboding, ominous even. She supposed that if you weren't going the whole "gouts of hellfire and wails of the damned" approach to a demon world, you'd lay on the moody atmosphere as thick as you could.

Kotohime spotted a river flowing down a valley, a blue-purple ribbon that happened to match her own heading. Purely on impulse she dropped altitude, flying low enough to admire her distorted reflection on the water's surface. She was wondering if the fish of Makai's rivers would be blind or if the dark water let in enough light for them to see when the the liquid in question abruptly fell out from under her.

She slowed to a stop, hovering over the edge of a great sheer cliff, listening to the distant thundering of the waterfall at least half a mile below. Turns out Makai water foamed a pleasing shade of sky blue. Kotohime decided to rest her figuratively weary legs and sat on the cliff edge, bunching up her dress under her butt as an improvised seat as she looked around.

A dark ocean filled the horizon a full 180 degrees in front of her, as though the coastal cliff she was perched on formed a border of sorts. The black waters were not empty – Kotohime spotted icebergs bobbing along like the tiny ones in an ink bottle during winter, as well as great frozen spires jutting high into the sky, sparkling like spiky diamonds. There was no sound of surf or gulls, and with only a faint breeze for company the place felt rather desolate, if starkly beautiful. Kotohime noted that there wasn't much in the way of surf or waves… or maybe there was, and she just couldn't tell because there wasn't enough light reflecting off the water's surface to make them visible.

The princess drummed her fingers on the cool, hard ground, frowning as she scanned the horizon for any sign of her destination. She'd probably flown the equivalent of a dozen Gensokyos so far, and she still hadn't reached Pandæmonium. If anything, this whole experience made her respect Reimu and the others all the more for traveling so far while fighting off waves of defenders… well, respect them as far as she could without condoning their unlawful invasion, which was totally different from the rescue mission she was embarked on.

Kotohime sighed and flung herself over the cliff's edge, pretending for a moment to be a disgraced princess preserving her honor through suicide. She pulled up at the last second to fly onward over the waters. At least there were ice sheets ahead, so she'd get to see if Makai had the equivalent of penguins. Wait, she was flying in a direction she'd decided was north. Did that mean she'd see demonic polar bears?

_Hell yes._ Kotohime sped up.

-x-

* * *

><p>-8-<p>

The attack came suddenly and without warning, as opposed to gradually after a written invitation.

Kotohime was flying over the crinkled layer of blue-tinged ice lying atop Makai's sea, admiring her reflection in the sparkling surface, particularly how it created the illusion that she was surrounded by twinkling motes of light. She'd been mentally designing a minor glamer to achieve a similar effect when what felt like a screaming sub-zero sledgehammer hit her in the small of her back, sending her plummeting out of the sky, too shocked to even cry out. She remembered she could fly just before she hit the ice below, managing to slow herself so that it only felt like a bad belly flop rather than a fatal splat.

Her combat instincts had her rolling even before the second and third blue-white beams stabbed down at her, howling like a winter storm. She tried to leap to her feet and start sprinting, but she still hadn't caught her breath from the bone-shaking impact and her back muscles were stiff and numb from cold. So Kotohime willed herself into the air and started juking about at random even while searching the skies for her attacker.

"Not bad, human!" came a voice that Kotohime had heard recently. She looked up and behind her to see that feisty guardwoman from the cave to Makai, her wings beating slowly as she hovered in the air. She'd discarded her helmet, revealing a haughty face framed by shoulder-length pale blue hair, and wasn't bothering with her halberd. Her black armor now featured some creeping vines of frost, which made her slightly easier to see against the midnight blue sky. "I'm impressed you survived that," she sneered.

"It wasn't the hardest thing I've been hit with, but it certainly didn't tickle," said the princess as she tried to brush the ice from the back of her robes. She narrowed her eyes slightly as she studied her attacker. "You tracked me through the portal?" she asked.

"No, I waited for you," the demoness replied smugly. "I know your type, human, and I know what you're after." Her eyes, the same color as her hair, flashed with cold anger. "So you want to prove yourself by challenging the Lady Shinki, huh? Humiliate our goddess to make yourself feel better? Go home and brag about it to all your wretched friends?"

"Not quite," Kotohime answered calmly. "You've deduced my destination correctly, but you misunderstand my motive and plan of action. And who are you, by the way?"

"I'm Mai," announced the other woman haughtily. "That should tell you all you need to know."

Kotohime chewed on her lower lip, looking at the frozen horizon as she thought. "Sorry, not ringing any bells. Were you the gatekeeper-"

"I was Makai's last line of defense between the invaders and the goddess!" the demoness shouted indignantly. "Even after the rest of my kin had been defeated, I stood alone to oppose the rampaging humans! On this frozen battlefield in Old Makai I met that 'shrine maiden' and witch in righteous combat!"

"And lost," supplied Kotohime helpfully.

"I'm much stronger now!" Mai bellowed, white-faced with suppressed fury. "And I don't need a squad or anyone else to help me destroy you!"

"Not when you're sucker-punching people, no," grumbled Kotohime. She was aware that she was scowling in a very un-princesslike manner, which just made her grumpier. Goodness knows she tried to get along with people, but for all her efforts here she was being rewarded with sneak attacks and death threats. "I was _trying_ to do a pacifist run, but I take it you're expecting a battle," she said, readying her chi and chakras and other assorted mystical energies for combat. "Is this going by spellcard rules?"

Mai sneered and folded her arms as a cluster of ice shards coalesced in the air above her in a nifty display of reverse-evaporation. The boulder-sized chunks of frost tumbled and spun in place for a second before launching, one after the other, in a barrage aimed at Kotohime.

"Guess not." The princess surged forward, rolling and dodging around the incoming projectiles, listening to the ice behind her crack and shatter from their impacts as she flew up directly at Mai. The demon soldier/witch/rude girl seemed taken aback by Kotohime's speed, and only narrowly avoided a mid-air collision as the princess seemingly attempted a high-speed headbutt.

Mai had just enough time to right herself before she noticed the line of bombs hanging in the air like an explosive after-image of Kotohime's flight. Just as gravity caught up with the black iron spheres, they detonated with a _B-B-B-BLAM_, filling the air around the ice-flinging demoness with thin trails of fire arcing in all directions.

Kotohime twisted upright and turned around, floating in place to survey her handiwork. The clouds of grey smoke cleared to reveal an irregular chunk of ice hovering in the air, pitted and scarred. Seconds later the frost came apart in sheets, leaving behind a glaring Mai, her pinkish wings flapping to dislodge chunks of lingering snow.

"Nice ice barrier," complimented Kotohime. "I guess that's your theme, isn't it? Ice magic? I'm more partial to a good fireball, but I've seen people get a lot of use out of-"

"Shut up!" shouted the demon magician, clenching fists that glowed with a blue-white nimbus before she began flinging blue fireballs that left lines of freezing fog behind them in place of ash.

"I should've known, really," the princess went on as she bobbed up and down to avoid the hasty attacks. "Because of your hair, I mean. Funny how you never see redheads with frost magic? Always blue-haired gals." She went still and struck an introspective prose, a finger to her lips. "Kinda half and half with blondes, though. Maybe they count as a kind of white-"

"_Shut up!" _screeched Mai. She thrust her arms forward with palms up and out, unleashing a shower of icy bullets each the size of Kotohime's head, an expanding cone of hundreds of projectiles that filled the skies above Makai's frozen wastes. The barrage went on for half a minute, obscuring any sight of the demoness' opponent, but when it ended-

Kotohime was still hovering in place, grinning brightly. "You've got a big ol' blind spot right in the middle of your bullet pattern," she explained. "I didn't even have to move. I don't suppose you've met – well, of course you haven't, she lives in Gensokyo – but there's this ice fairy I know, and when she made her first spellcard she left this _enormous_ gap right in front of her-"

Mai screamed, a wordless cry of frustration and hatred. She fired beam after beam of howling cold energy at Kotohime, but the princess looped and twisted through the sky, almost carelessly evading them.

Kotohime noted how the other woman's attacks – some sort of ice laser? – seemed to curve in an attempt to track her, and wondered if that tiger youkai from the Myouren Temple had cribbed spells from Makai too. She made a mental note to investigate the spread of demon magic in Gensokyo even as she began her final attack run.

She climbed until she was directly over her opponent, who was still spamming blue beams of cold at her, too enraged to aim properly. Then the princess began spiraling down to draw a cone shape around Mai, remaining evasive as she descended, but never returning fire.

Mai noticed. "I'm not going to go easy on you!" the magician screamed. "So fight me already!"

Kotohime stopped counting under her breath and came to a halt, beaming at her foe. "Oh, I am," she assured her.

A second later the bomb she'd dropped at the apex of her flight detonated right behind Mai, blasting the demoness forward and sending her tumbling.

"You know, sneak attack aside, I can still respect you," admitted Kotohime as Mai struggled to right herself. The dazed demon magician had no time to react before Kotohime began pelting her with dual streams of rapid-fire danmaku, as though the princess were a plane with nose-mounted machine guns. The vaguely conical purple energy pellets spun Mai around as they exploded against her armor, while the demon girl tried to shield her face with her gauntlets and hide her vulnerable wings behind her body.

"You've got street cred, you see," Kotohime continued as though she weren't unleashing a torrent of offensive magic. "You fought Reimu back before she put on the kiddy gloves, and even though you lost, you at least survived the encounter. That makes you a worthy and dangerous opponent." She yanked a pair of bombs out of her pouch and lobbed the grenades underhand down towards Mai. The explosions drowned out the demoness' cry and left her in freefall, her increasingly-dented and battered armor smoking slightly, singed feathers falling with her like snow.

Mai managed to twist around and land heavily on her hands and knees, creating a web of cracks in the ice around her. After only a second or two she pushed herself upright, wings flapping to help keep her balance, staggering a bit before assuming a wide combat stance. She glared balefully up at Kotohime and clenched her glowing fists, preparing another attack despite the beating she'd taken.

"You've got a lot of spirit, and you're certainly no lightweight," the princess conceded. "But there's something you don't know." Kotohime lightly touched her fingertips together, cradling a sphere of brilliant purple energy that grew larger and brighter as she poured more of her magical power into it. "I fought Reimu too, back in the day. And the difference between you and me?

"_I won_."

Mai shouted and fired a thick beam of cold at the intruding human, but Kotohime easily sidestepped it before releasing her own attack with a resounding _CHOOM_. The icy field was momentarily painted a shade of lavender as Kotohime was almost lost in the arcane backblast. The display completely engulfed Mai and made the ice sheet around her crunch and crack like rotten wood, the beam of light blazing like a beacon in the dark skies of Makai.

Ten seconds later, when the magical superlaser finally petered out, a light-headed Kotohime dazedly confirmed that Makai's miasma did indeed boost a person's magical abilities. She hurriedly flew down to make sure she hadn't killed anyone.

There was a wide, shallow crater carved into the ice now, at the base of a rising cloud of steam. And in the very middle, half-entombed in refreezing frost, was Mai, chunks of her armor missing, her feathery wings looking a bit ragged. But she stirred at Kotohime's approach and glared defiantly at the human. Her left arm – the only one free of the ice - shook as she struggled to raise it, but she let it flop over her exposed stomach instead of attacking.

"Well, go on," she said quietly, weary and resigned. "Finish it."

Kotohime rolled her eyes. "Don't be so melodramatic. Honestly, if I went around killing perps left and right I'd have to put myself on disciplinary leave. Come on," she went on, kneeling down to try to pry at the ice trapping the woman, "let's get you out-"

"_Get your hands off of her!"_

Kotohime stood up sharply, looking around for the newcomer. "Hello?" she called.

"Oh no," moaned Mai. "_Nooooooo_…"

Another person was approaching at high speed, coming in low and fast, a blonde woman in a black dress and hat-

Kotohime blinked in surprise. "Marisa?"

The newcomer extended her arms straight out from her body-

"Rumia?"

-before clenching her fists, projecting a nimbus of red energy. Then with a shout she jabbed her hands forward, releasing a shower of whistling fireballs that flew in a tight spiral directly at Kotohime.

The princess did one of her patented action rolls, which had two effects. First was that she successfully dodged the attack that went on to vaporize a distant pillar of ice. Secondly, she learned that ice was not a good surface for gymnastics as she slid out of control, tumbling until she ended up in one of the craters resulting from her just-finished duel.

"I'm coming, Mai!" her attacker yelled worriedly.

The half-frozen witch struggled to free herself. "Anyone but _her!_ Why couldn't you have killed me?" she snarled at Kotohime.

Kotohime managed to push herself to her feet in time to see the new woman land between her and the stricken Mai. She looked, superficially anyway, much like Marisa Kirisame, Gensokyo's resident witch, troublemaker, and Incident resolver. Both had blonde hair and golden eyes, and both wore dark dresses and hats. But this girl's clothes were, now that Kotohime could get a closer look, a very dark shade of red rather than black, and while Marisa was sometimes known as the black-white witch, this girl favored faded faded pink as her complementary color, plus her hat wasn't as pointy and witchy like Marisa's.

The princess blinked as realization dawned. Kirisame had an evil demonic twin!

The newcomer pointed at Kotohime with one hand while raising the other in a clenched fist. "Your rampage has gone on long enough, evildoer!" she announced fervently. "I cannot permit you to progress any further, or inflict more harm upon my friends!"

"We're not friends you_ idiot_!" ground out Mai behind her.

"You're right, Mai, we're more than friends. We're partners." The woman turned to flash the ice witch a reassuring smile, then resumed glaring at Kotohime with righteous indignation. "So, what do you have to say for yourself, interloper?"

"I think _Kirisame_'s the evil twin," Kotohime decided.

Two pairs of blank stares. "What?" the anti-Marisa asked.

"Never mind. Anyway," the princess went on, making a dismissive gesture at the half-frozen ice witch, "she started it."

"And she had every right to do so, as a loyal guardian of the realm. Now it is _my_ duty to finish what she started and avenge her defeat." The woman rose into the air, her dark dress rippling as she marshaled her arcane power. "Are you prepared to face my blazing justice?"

Kotohime smiled warmly. "Aww, that's nice of you to ask first. Frosty McGrouchyface here went with a sneak attack. If you'll pardon the pun: not cool, man, not cool." She tilted her head slightly. "So, introductions now?"

"I am Yuki, pyromancer and defender of Makai!" the blonde girl said proudly, thumping her chest with a fist in a warrior's salute.

"Pleased to meet you. I am Kotohime, princess and defender of Gensokyo! Though I guess I'm kind of invading you guys this afternoon. Or possibly evening now, I forgot my watch and can't find a sun anywhere. Anyway, it's all for a good cause." She distractedly swatted at her backside to knock a bit more ice from her robes.

"Then let us do battle, Kotohime of Genso…" Yuki trailed off, blinking. "Really? A princess?"

"_And_ a champion magical duelist," Kotohime added, a confident smile on her face. "So let's see what you've got." And with that she blurred into the air, gaining altitude on her flat-footed opponent even as she loosed a few streams of lavender-colored energy pellets.

Yuki was good, she had to admit. The Makai girl spent only a second staring in surprise before she hurled skyward, barrel-rolling to dodge Kotohime's attacks. Then Yuki put her hands together and-

Kotohime stared in shock as the sky before her rapidly filled with countless fist-sized fireballs, like a field of stars drifting deceptively quickly in her direction. There was no pattern in the attack that she could discern, no obvious route through the layers of sparkly doom, and the component projectiles were all moving in different directions at different speeds, and she could actually _hear_ the air sizzling from their heat and oh crap they were right on top of her-

The princess plummeted, diving straight towards the ground at faster than terminal velocity, reasoning that if she couldn't dodge a thousand individual bullets maybe she could avoid the barrage itself. She barely made it. She felt the heat of a half-dozen miniature suns grazing her body, frizzling her hair and scorching her robes.

Inwardly, Kotohime groaned. She was expecting to face a demon queen turned goddess after this, and here she was looking all raggedy and half-baked. And she _could_ have packed a spare set of clothes, but noooo, she'd decided to travel light.

She pulled out of her dive with maybe two feet to spare, but kept at top speed, hugging the gentle slopes of the ice sheets as she looked around for her opponent. Yuki was keeping pace directly above her, almost invisible against the blue-purple sky, at least until she started lobbing guttering pyroclasts the size of tool sheds ahead of Kotohime. The princess had to desperately dodge the resulting clouds of lethal steam and razor-sharp fragments of broken ice, a task made all the more difficult when Yuki started spraying smaller streams of burning projectiles her way between the ice-breaking fireballs.

Well, there was _one_ patch of ground Yuki wouldn't blast for sure. Kotohime did a sharp u-turn, retracing her path towards the start of the engagement. It wasn't hard, all she had to do was follow the trail of craters. There were a few blessed moments when Yuki wasn't raining more burning boulders down on her, and Kotohime glanced over her shoulder just in time to see the gigantic red energy beam barreling down on her. Only by making an abrupt perpendicular turn was she able to avoid the…

She was tempted to label the attack a magical laser along the lines of Marisa's famous Master Spark, but since lasers by definition traveled at lightspeed she couldn't have dodged one. Unless, Kotohime realized with a shock that momentarily halted her in her tracks, _she could move faster than light_.

"Hey!" she yelled up at Yuki. "Do I appear to be teleporting when I move?"

The orangish glow that preceded a magical fireball abruptly faded from Yuki's hands. "Huh?"

"Does it look like I'm moving instantaneously?" Kotohime repeated.

"No!"

"Awww. Guess I've still got room to improve. Oh well." Kotohime burst into action once more, corkscrewing randomly as she gained altitude for an attack run on Yuki, her twin streams of purple magical missiles slicing through the air.

The Makai witch – the fire-flinging one, not the girl half-frozen at the moment – yelped with surprise and went fully evasive, though she still lost her hat when Kotohime blasted past. Teeth bared, Yuki flung a glowing hand forward-

And froze. Kotohime was floating in the air, arms folded, her red ponytail swaying in the chill breeze, a smug smile on her face… because past her was the spot where Mai was still stuck in the ice. "Well? Aren't you going to attack?"

Yuki's face contorted with anger before she suddenly darted upward, but Kotohime matched the action, always making sure that the other Makai girl was directly behind her. When Yuki rushed at her, Kotohime retreated, maintaining both the critical distance and the angle.

Finally Yuki stopped to hover, scowling at Kotohime darkly. "Have you no honor?"

"I'm not being dishonorable, I'm being cunning," the princess corrected. "Anyway, neither of us agreed to make this a formal spellcard duel." Which Kotohime secretly welcomed – she was a bit sketchy on the actual _rules_ of such engagements, so it was always a relief when her opponents just tried to kill her instead. "So," she continued, clapping her hands briskly, "we appear to be at an impasse – you can't strike at me, while I can't move on to my objective without exposing myself to attack. So why don't we call the fight a draw and get on with our lives?"

Yuki thought about it for a second. "Wait, it's not a stalemate – as long as you stay where you are, you can strike at me with impunity."

Kotohime blinked with surprise. "I can? Hey, you're right!"

So she threw some bombs at Yuki.

-x-

* * *

><p>-9-<p>

"Well I _thought_ it landed somewhere around here, but I still don't see it."

"'s alright. Was only a hat."

Kotohime staggered a bit and adjusted her hold on Yuki, who was flopped bonelessly atop her back for a piggy-back carry. The flame-throwing magician was surprisingly heavy for someone her size. Maybe it said something about Makaijin tissue density. Or maybe Kotohime just needed to hit the gym.

"I must say," Kotohime declared as she staggered along, "you took those blasts like a champ."

"Thanks…" said Yuki weakly. "Managed a fire shield… absorbed some of it…"

"I'm glad," the policewoman replied. "I'm not out to _hurt_ people, I'm trying to _rescue_ someone." She sighed. "I guess you two are just collateral damage."

"Oh, good," murmured the scorched and battered witch.

"Always with the collateral damage," muttered Kotohime. "No matter where I go or what I'm doing. Rescue someone, collateral damage. Investigate _how_ to rescue someone, collateral damage. Go out for groceries, collateral damage." With a grunt she slung her passenger down on the ice next to the still half-embedded Mai.

The winter witch gave her would-be rescuer a disdainful glare. "_Idiot_," she hissed. Yuki didn't reply, having lapsed into unconsciousness at some point before hitting the ground.

"Well," the princess said as she dusted her hands, "that was quite a work-out! But I need to get going, pressing mission and all. Sorry to leave you stuck like this, but I'm sure Yuki will help get you out once she comes to."

Mai attempted to kill her with the power of pure hatred, communicated through eye contact. It didn't work.

"You're both pretty damn good fighters," Kotohime conceded, nodding respectfully. "I'd say Yuki's the stronger one, obviously-"

Mai turned a shade of purple.

"But," the princess continued, "here's a thought – what if you tried working together, eh? Form a magical duo, harnessing the power of the antipodes, use the opposing elemental forces to increase your strength and cover each others' weaknesses? I see some real team potential there. I mean, if you'd both attacked me at once – well," said Kotohime, flapping her arms with a half-smile on her face, "maybe I'd be the one half-frozen, you know? Just something to consider, anyway. Catch you later!"

As Kotohime flew on to cross the frozen sea of Makai, she heard a scream of unadulterated rage rise behind her.

-x-

* * *

><p>-10-<p>

She was… well, Kotohime had no idea where she was now. It was like she'd flown past the world's end to arrive somewhere unlike any place she'd been before.

The sky had faded away entirely, leaving a pitch-black void hanging over her, a place where concepts of distance disappeared into the starless depths. The chill arctic breeze was gone, and for that matter she couldn't even feel the wind against her face as she flew. For all Kotohime could tell she was in a vacuum, though this didn't seem to be stopping her from breathing. So logically there was either an atmosphere, or Kotohime could breathe in space.

Below her… Kotohime wasn't sure _what_ she was flying over. If it was ice it was mirror-smooth, or maybe it was perfectly still water. Whatever it was, there was a deep blue sheen to it (even though there was nothing above her to make such a reflection), so at least Kotohime could tell which way was down.

Also, there were pillars. The monumental structures were arranged in pairs a hundred yards apart, appearing in long but regular intervals. They were utterly featureless save for how they gleamed blue-white against Makai's black sky, perfectly reflected in the mirror-like surface below them… or maybe it wasn't a mirror, but something transparent, and she was seeing the pillars jutting through to the other side? Kotohime couldn't tell, and had a strange reluctance to landing in order to find out.

The paired pillars delineated a giant's causeway, an arrow-straight path that led directly towards the horizon, framing a short, thin white line that separated the ground from the sky, as though a star had just sank out of sight around the curvature of the earth. Assuming Makai had curvature, anyway.

It was utterly quiet, so that the policewoman's beating heart seemed to echo like a pounding drum. There was no sign of life, no indication that anything dwelled in this dark, alien landscape. But Kotohime's instincts were telling her that she was nearing the end of her journey, one way or another, if she had the courage to see her mission through.

Almost as if in confirmation, the whiteness ahead of her was broken by a dark shape slowly rising past the horizon as Kotohime gradually drew closer. At first she thought it was a mountain, but as she approached she made out regular shapes and patterns – spires, ramparts, keeps. It was a citadel the size of a city, grown upward and outward into a rough conical shape, layer after layer of towers and walls built atop each other.

Kotohime was so focused on what could only be her destination that she only belatedly noticed she'd just flown past a single pillar rather than a pair. She slowed to a stop and hovered, looking around. Sure enough, one of the structures behind her had collapsed, and it wasn't the only one damaged. As Kotohime looked ahead, she saw that at least one out of every three of the featureless monoliths had been toppled or broken apart.

That wasn't the only sign of damage - the surface below her was no longer smooth and featureless. Kotohime had reached a great broken expanse where the ground was rent with depthless chasms, shattered and disjointed plates that gleamed like ice, and half-healed scars, as though the land had refrozen after being seared with lines of fire. The angles of some formations suggested they had been buildings before their annihilation, though there was precious little left to suggest a settlement had once stood here. It looked quite like an old battlefield, though one home to a struggle of greater ferocity than any mortals could imagine.

And perched on the edge of a great chasm was that imposing fortress, blotting out the lit part of the horizon like an eclipse. Pandæmonium, capital of Makai, bastion of demons, and home of a self-proclaimed goddess.

Even Kotohime's dauntless spirit quailed a bit at the thought of meeting the one partly responsible for the devastation before her. But her resolve held, and she thought of the life she was trying to save, and flew on.

She was expecting _some_ form of challenge, some guardian to rise up and meet her as she drew near. But the dark citadel showed no reaction to Kotohime's approach, as though the colossal structure were abandoned. So she picked a balcony as wide as a village square near the fortress' top and made her landing, looking around to take in her surroundings.

The princess wasn't sure if Pandæmonium was made of crystal, glass, or ice. Whichever it was, the blocks of its walls were almost transparent, denoted mainly by the white gleam on their corners and edges. Not that this allowed her to see through the citadel's walls – she could discern nothing behind that first layer of bricks but a pitch-black void, as though the castle were an empty shell. Some sort of demon magic was to blame, Kotohime wagered.

She waited for a good minute or two in case a guard decided to come by, but there was nothing but that almost unbearable silence. The structure was certainly large enough to house an entire army, but it felt deserted.

Kotohime turned to look back over the way she'd come, at the rows of columns leading towards a dark horizon, at the fissues and scars carved into the shattered terrain. A desolate land in a realm of demons, far removed from both mortals and the natives of this strange place. A land of eternal darkness, bleak and foreboding… and melancholy. Like a memorial to someone's broken dreams, or a lonely cairn on a windswept hill.

The princess frowned. She didn't like feeling sad.

Without a second glance backward, she turned and strode into the nearest doorway.

-x-

* * *

><p>-11-<p>

Kotohime never got lost. There were times, however, when she was unsure what sidetracks would be necessary before she inevitably reached her destination.

The main problem was that every room or hallway in the citadel was all but identical – stark walls of ice/crystal blocks, floors of ice/crystal blocks, ceilings of ice/crystal blocks, and _nothing_ _else._ There weren't paintings or carpets or any type of furnishing, not even light fixtures of some kind. But it wasn't dark, since the blocks were still doing that thing where their edges shone white, and somehow Kotohime could see herself as if she were fully illuminated. It actually made her a bit nervous, as she was quite brightly lit and there weren't any shadows for her to hide – no, not hide! Shadows to _take cover in_ and approach criminals unawares.

Those oddities aside, the whole place had an unfinished look to it, really. As if it had been built by someone who knew what they were doing and wanted the fortress completed quickly, but who also knew that nobody would be using it, so they didn't put any effort into polish or furnishings as long as the outside looked nice. Which didn't add up. Everything Kotohime had heard suggested that Pandæmonium had taken severe damage over the course of the past Incident, though obviously it had been rebuilt since then, if not quite completed. But then why was the surrounding landscape still torn up? Why rebuild the fort in the first place if you were just going to leave it an empty shell? Kotohime couldn't wrap her head around it. Did Shinki _want_ to see devastation every time she looked out her window?

The princess paused for a moment to violently shake her head in an effort to dislodge distracting thoughts. She needed to stay focused, she _knew_ her quarry was near, and so-

Something streaked past her face.

Kotohime blinked, watching a few severed strands of red hair drift to the ground, then turned to inspect what turned out to be a Western-style longsword buried almost to its hilt in the wall beside her.

"It is only the will of my mistress that you still draw breath," came a woman's voice, as cold and hard as Makai's frozen seas.

The princess looked back to see a blonde woman standing on the other side of the room, framed by a dark doorway. She was garbed as a French maid, though the dress under her white apron was a bloody red. She was – well, frankly beautiful, but cool and emotionless, like a porcelain doll. Her eyes were a vivid yellow, and watching Kotohime's movements intently. "Now that I have your attention," she continued, "I-"

"That was awesome!" Kotohime gushed, clapping her hands excitedly. "You must be really strong! You must've thrown that with…" she trailed off, frowning. "Oh dear, I can't do the calculations unless I know how sharp the sword was and the strength of these walls, to say nothing of mass and make. Nevertheless, that was quite a throw! Have you been hurling weapons long?"

The maid blinked with confusion. "What?"

"Do maids have a college where they can go to learn the deadly arts?" the princess went on. "I ask because there's this maid back at the Scarlet Devil Mansion who can do _amazing _things with throwing knives, though I'm not sure if she's received specialized training or was a vampire hunter or is actually a Lunarian or-"

This time it was three swords at once blurring past her face. Kotohime glanced over her shoulder to see the weapons embedded in the wall in an upside-down U formation that must have neatly framed her head. She reached out and touched one of the swords' simple hilts and found that the blades weren't so much as quivering from the impact.

She turned back to beam at the maid. "I could barely see you move! You _are_ good! My name's Kotohime," she said, extending a hand. "What's yours?"

The maid's face was stony, technically expressionless, but the eyes betrayed bottomless irritation. Her gaze flickered down at the offered hand, but she didn't otherwise react to it. "I am Yumeko, personal attendant to Lady Shinki. _You_ are an intruder, and-"

"Then this _is_ Shinki's palace, right?"

There was a blur of movement and suddenly Yumeko was gripping the tip of a three-foot longsword between the fingers of a clenched fist. "_Lady_. Shinki." she ground out, her temple twitching, yellow eyes blazing. "Milady does not receive visitors. Allow me to escort you to the exit or perish by my hand, it is your choice."

What was it about maids? Kotohime asked herself. Was it the frilly apron, or the similarly frilly headband thingy? What was it that made them so fanatically, _violently_ loyal to their employers? You never saw a gardener charging out to defend her mistress – well alright, there _was_ wossername, that half-ghost girl who trimmed the lawn at Hakugyokurou and who was also handy with a katana. But then again the half-ghost was kind of a general helper, so she probably counted as a maid anyway-

With another blur, Yumeko was gripping a second sword in her raised fist. She gave the princess a frigid glare. "This is your last warning," the maid told her.

Kotohime held up her hands in a gesture of submission. "Alright, alright, I'll go quietly." She tried to hide her smile. "Well? Gonna disarm me?"

"I see no weapons," Yumeko said tersely.

"You sure?" The princess waggled her hip enticingly. "Not gonna confiscate this mysterious bag? Could be all sorts of dangerous stuff in there, eh?"

"It looks empty."

Kotohime froze and looked down at the pouch on her sash. Damnation. She must have used the last of her grenades fighting Yuki. Now how was she gonna get past Yumeko, much less face down Shinki, without any bombs? Not that she needed them to win a fight, of course, it's just that bombs were kind of her thing. Victory was important, but style counted too.

She sighed and gave Yumeko a disappointed look. "Hey, you can't stop time or anything, can you?"

Yumeko's eyes narrowed. "Why would I possess such a power?"

"I thought it might be, I dunno, some sort of advanced cleaning technique maids learned at some point." Kotohime bounced on her heels. "Guess I have a chance at this, then. Have at thee!" she shouted, and leapt into the air, hurtling along at full speed towards the maid in red.

Yumeko smiled.

The air behind the maid seemed to ripple like a pond's surface during a gentle shower, each distortion emanating from the tip of one of the dozens of razor-sharp blades that suddenly materialized and shot towards Kotohime like missiles. The princess' keen tactical mind deduced that hurtling head-first into an oncoming barrage of swords was probably a bad idea, so she did a sharp turn, scraping against a doorframe as she dove into a side passage just in time to avoid the storm of stabbity steel.

She found herself flying down a long, plain hallway. Before she could glance over her shoulder to see if she was being followed, Kotohime saw the air do that rippling thing again as rows of swords materialized along the walls to either side of her before shooting out into the corridor as if she'd triggered a pressure plate in an ancient temple. She landed, skidding to a halt on the unearthly floor rather than intercepting the barrage of metal with her fleshy bits.

Her instincts had her sidestepping before she'd even turned around, just in time to dodge Yumeko's charge. The maid twirled as she leapt, the longswords in each of her hands keening as they sliced through the air. Yumeko continuously changed her grip on her weapons as she danced into battle, sometimes holding the swords normally in her fists, sometimes reversed, and sometimes she held their hilts loosely with her fingers so their blades extended straight out from her arms. There was a fluidity and grace to her attacks that Kotohime found spectacular, though she had a feeling she'd appreciate it more if she wasn't in danger of losing her head.

There was no time for witty repartee, and it was all the princess could manage to sidestep and dodge and retreat from the twirling swords – she didn't dare turn to flee properly. Her back hit a wall, and a savage grin flitted across Yumeko's face before she drove her swordtip at Kotohime's skull.

The princess tucked her legs in against her body, leaving the incoming sword to stab into the wall as she landed in a sudden squat. She lunged forward as if to tackle Yumeko, but her attacker deftly spun out of the way before transferring the energy into a leaping chop, her sword arcing overhead-

But Kotohime had used the precious seconds her maneuver had earned wisely.

Yumeko's longsword clanged against Kotohime's _jitte_, the blade sparking against the metal rod before it got caught in the hook facing upwards from its hilt. With a quick twist of her wrist Kotohime tore the sword from Yumeko's grasp and sent it clattering into a corner.

To her credit, Yumeko didn't pause in shock, but instead twirled away again, leaping back for a second only to spring back to the attack. Kotohime gripped her police baton in both hands and swung with all her might at the incoming blade. Steel met steel with a ringing crash, and Yumeko chose to let her weapon be batted out of her hand rather than risk being set off-balance by the aggressive parry. She darted back out of reach before her foe could take advantage of her disarming.

Kotohime panted and flourished her weapon. "Well met, but I think I've won this duel."

Yumeko, her emotionless mask broken by a faint, satisfied smile, made a simple gesture, causing the air behind her to begin rippling-

"Oh, right, you can still do swordhax," said the princess with a wince. A solid wall of longswords began accelerating towards her-

Kotohime let loose with her magical power, but didn't aim at the maid. Instead she fired a beam of intense purple light straight above, blasting a table-sized circular hole in the ceiling. She'd leapt up and through it before the flash from her attack had faded, and she hurtled through the first doorway she saw in the room above.

Yumeko's cry of anger echoed through the crystal halls of Pandæmonium. A second later reality warped and contorted as swords exploded out of the walls, floor and ceiling, hissing through the air at every conceivable angle, filling the rooms and corridors with razor-sharp projectiles the length of a man's forearm.

It would have been more threatening if Kotohime didn't live in a place where danmaku duels were practically a national pastime. Granted, the flying swords were quite different from the bullets of magical energy the princess was used to, but danmaku was danmaku: one hit and you're out. So Kotohime resolved not to get hit.

She dove, she juked, she twirled, she rolled to dodge the swordstorm. Though it wasn't much like a proper danmaku duel, she mentally admitted. Yumeko's attacks lacked the style of the dizzingly complex but beautiful patterns of magical pellets she was more familiar with, and it looked like the maid was more interested in killing her than putting on a good show. But she evidently didn't know where Kotohime was, so she was going for quantity over quality, which was probably the only reason Kotohime was still in one piece.

Quite sloppy for someone wearing a maid's outfit. What if she hit the crockery? Or, heavens forbid, her mistress? But she probably wasn't thinking clearly, Kotohime decided as a silvery blade narrowly avoided opening up her jugular. The poor girl was clearly emotionally unbalanced.

Well, if Yumeko was going to attack at random, then Kotohime resolved to dodge at random. She flew along the empty halls and chambers, navigating entirely based on which doorway or side passage caught her fancy. The barrage of swords gradually thinned out as Kotohime made a dizzying flight up a tall spiral staircase, and within two minutes of the barrage's start the attacks petered off completely. Either Yumeko had given up or Kotohime was out of range.

The policewoman slowed to cautiously land, standing still in a small, plain chamber to listen for any sign of pursuit, but the only sound was her gradually calming breathing.

So. Once more, she was alone and lost in the vast fortress of Pandæmonium. On the upside, she knew she was definitely getting close to Shinki. On the downside, another blade-flinging psycho maid was out to kill her.

Kotohime shrugged to herself and took off, drifting aimlessly through the glassy halls and rooms of the demon fortress. Pretty much business as usual, really.

-x-

* * *

><p>-12-<p>

It was abrupt. One moment Kotohime was in a featureless room nearly identical to the past hundred or so she'd gone through, and then she turned a corner and there it was. She froze in shock at the sight of a long table of dark, polished wood situated against a wall, then stepped forward to investigate what it was supporting.

Three terra cotta flowerpots were laid out in a row, standing out against the clear blocks of the wall behind them like a dried splash of blood. They didn't bear the crystalline flora Kotohime had seen earlier, but yellow flowers from the outside world – not even fancy specimens or anything, but stuff that grew in people's yards. There was a… daisy? Daffodil? Dandelion? Kotohime was no flower youkai, much less a flower person. Whatever, they were all boring plants growing out of cheapo pottery, which felt incredibly out of place in a demon fortress and home of a goddess.

The detective part of Kotohime felt like there was a clue here, some indicator of the lady of Makai's mental process. Other parts of her felt alternatively hungry, bored, and expectant, so she moved on.

There was an actual door next to the table, the first she'd seen since entering Pandæmonium, made of the same dark, vaguely-reddish timber as the table. To Kotohime's surprise it wasn't locked, which was a bit of a disappointment given that she'd brought her lockpicks and everything. She slipped through and found herself in a long, high gallery stretching off to her left and right, the far wall lined with windows rising from floor to ceiling. Outside the iron-latticed windows was the stretch of broken ground Kotohime had flown over to get here, a mosaic of blue maybe-ice and deep black chasms and craters under the starless void of the Makai sky. The princess shivered and turned away. There were more wooden doors all along the opposite wall, so she opened one at random.

She had discovered a demon queen's storage closet, Kotohime quickly deduced. There were shelves bearing cardboard boxes, and a sturdy wooden chest in the corner that made her palms itch. She crouched down to start acquiring evidence, but then she saw something on the floor almost out of sight behind the trunk, something that made her eyes widen in shock before narrowing in suspicion, something that changed the situation in Makai completely. Without a second thought she scooped it up and stuffed it down her sleeve before coming out of the closet.

Kotohime stared at nothing in particular, considering her next move. The game plan had changed, she decided. Instead of a direct confrontation, now she had the option of bargaining. Either way, she still needed to find the demon queen.

The next door she opened led into a good-sized kitchen, and the one after that was another closet. Annoyed, Kotohime glanced down the long gallery at the set of double doors on the end of it, a portal that was impressive enough to suit either a dining hall or master quarters. She ghosted her way down the passage, her robes rippling as she flew in the eerily-silent fortress, until she landed in front of the doors. She pressed an ear against the thick portal, but could hear nothing in the room beyond. Shrugging, she pushed it open.

Master quarters it was. A tasteful glass chandelier hung from the high ceiling, softly illuminating a thick burgundy carpet that was a welcome change from walking on those transparent blocks. There was an enormous canopy bed, looking as neat and tidy as if it'd just been made, situated on the far wall next to a flickering fireplace. A line of tall windows covered all of one wall, partially hidden by heavy red curtains. There was an ornate wardrobe, a desk and plush chair, a small coffee table, a-

"You must be the intruder Yumeko is searching for."

Kotohime jumped at the sudden voice, and turned quickly to look for its source. Someone was standing in a darkened doorway to her right, its shape indistinct but definitely humanoid, feminine. It was illuminated not by an external light source, but by the vividly glowing lines of scarlet and purple that formed a pattern over its body, like intricate tribal paint or alien circuitry. The face was an almost expressionless mask, save for a pair of luminous violet eyes that made Kotohime jolt again when she met their gaze. Six abstract shapes behind the dark apparition were probably wings, but instead of feathers or folds of skin they looked like teardrop-shaped blobs that weren't actually attached to the figure.

But then the strange silhouette took a step into the light and was suddenly revealed to be – or perhaps became – a stately woman. Her face was soft, kind, set in a gentle smile; her silvery eyes were calm and friendly. She wore a simple red dress and matching capelet, and her hair was a smoky gray, long enough to reach the small of her back, hanging loose save for one small off-center ponytail on the left side of her head bound by some red bobbles. She carried an almost palpable aura of tranquility and confidence, a sense of imposing strength blunted by a motherly aspect – Kotohime felt the newcomer was in total control of the situation, but that she had nothing to fear from her either. She would have appeared quite human were it not for the pair of feathery white wings folded snugly against her back.

Kotohime realized she was staring and quickly offered a deep bow. "That is indeed the case," she confessed. "I am Princess Kotohime of Gensokyo. And you must be the Lady Shinki?"

The woman nodded politely. "Just so. I was not expecting a visitor at this hour, but it would certainly be rude to turn you away, given how far you have come. Please, take a seat," she said, gesturing at one of the comfy leather chairs parked around the short round table near the fireplace.

Kotohime plopped herself down thankfully – it was good to get off her feet after a long day's journey, even if it had mostly been spent flying. Shinki gracefully settled down on a plush cushion set on the floor, resting on her knees… which made sense, Kotohime figured, since the wings would probably get in the way of most furniture.

"All we are missing are some refreshments," Shinki commented with a faint smile.

Her words hadn't faded from the air when the door to her chambers burst open and Yumeko leapt in like a red, white and yellow blur. Kotohime didn't have time to react as the maid lunged towards her, arm sweeping forward as she flung something-

Shinki demurely held up a hand-

A three-foot line of rust hung in the air for a second before falling like orange snow. Kotohime found herself watching the puffs as they drifted to land on the coffee table.

"Yumeko, I am sorry to say that my chambers will require further cleaning," said Shinki calmly, finally turning her head as she addressed her servant.

The maid was perfectly still for several seconds, then dropped into a deep curtsy. "My apologies, milady," she said, head bowed. "If you will only step outside for a brief moment-" she looked up and gave Kotohime a frigid stare "-I will remove this trash."

The princess whistled. "Oooh, good one. Yeah, I'll definitely keep that zinger in mind if I'm ever in a maid outfit again."

Shinki gave her maid a calm look. "That will not be necessary, Yumeko. The princess is my honored guest, and will be treated as such."

Yumeko took a deep breath as her face reddened, meeting her mistress' gaze. "Milady-"

"This is not open to discussion," said Shinki firmly. "I am touched by your protectiveness, but-"

"She is a mortal!" the maid blurted out. "Another Gensokyan! All they do is come here and pillage and destroy and-"

"Yumeko…" Shinki murmured as she rose to her feet.

"-doesn't deserve to sit at a table with your greatness, and…" Tears were rolling down the maid's cheeks as Yumeko gave Shinki a pleading look. "Let me stop her. Do not ask me to watch our home burn again," she said in a small, miserable voice. "Do not ask me to watch you be humiliated again."

Shinki stepped forward and enveloped her maid in a warm hug, closing her eyes and resting her chin atop Yumeko's head as the sniffling maid pressed her face against the demon queen's chest.

"You are ever ready to defend me, my faithful servant," said Shinki gently. "But I ask you to trust me. Not every newcomer seeks only battle."

Yumeko said nothing, and kept her eyes tightly shut as her mistress held her.

"Yeah, it's not like I'm a shrine maiden or anything," Kotohime spoke up. It was supposed to be a joke, but then her eyebrow arched speculatively as she stared thoughtfully into the distance. "Or _am_ I?"

Shinki chuckled quietly, then kissed her maid's head and pulled back to hold Yumeko at arm's length. "Now, why don't you prepare some refreshments? What would you have to drink, princess?" she asked Kotohime. "Coffee, tea, cocoa, wine?"

"Tea's good," said Kotohime with a friendly nod.

"An excellent choice. Yumeko's tea is one of Makai's treasures." She nodded at the door, and the maid wordlessly slipped out of the room, a respectful servant instead of a coldly furious death machine. "Though I must say that our wine improves with every season," Shinki added as she returned to her seat on the cushion across from Kotohime. "Sara has become quite a successful cultivator since retiring from gatekeeping. I am pleased she has found her true calling."

Kotohime shifted uncomfortably in her very comfortable chair. "Was she guarding the gate when the Incident happened?"

"She was eager to fulfill her duty, as she saw it," said Shinki, nodding. "But it quickly became clear that her talents lay elsewhere. After the 'incident,' as you put it, my children ensured that the newly-formed defensive force would have more stringent recruitment standards. Ah, thank you, Yumeko," she said as the maid returned bearing a silver tray. After the maid set it down on the table, Shinki picked up one of the three porcelain cups and took a sip. "Excellent as always."

"Thank you, milady," the maid said softly, respectfully. She left the room without meeting anyone's gaze.

Well this was nice and cozy, sitting down for a tea party with a demon queen in her imposing hell-fortress. Kotohime slurped from her own cup and was quietly surprised. The flavor was similar to that of green tea, which she didn't usually go for, but there was a fruitiness to it unlike anything she'd tasted before. Simultaneously tangy and minty, she felt. The princess wondered it Makai's miasma had something to do with it, if the tea might have the same magic-enhancing properties since it had grown in the alien air.

"Now, on the subject of gatekeepers," the demon queen continued, giving her guest a penetrating stare. "May I ask how you were able to enter Makai? As I said, my children have established a defensive force to dissuade invaders, to say nothing of my own seals intended to bar entry. So," she said, her arms folded in her lap as she watched Kotohime like a cat waiting by a birdbath, "how accurate were Yumeko's fears of another Gensokyan rampage?"

The gentle, motherly vibe from Shinki was suddenly gone, and instead the room felt like a bald mountaintop on the verge of a terrible storm. Kotohime was intensely aware that she was in the presence of someone _very_ powerful who it would be best to keep happy. She tried not to gulp too loudly.

"I wouldn't call it a _rampage_," she said, trying to appear calm and more importantly, harmless. "More like a disturbance or two. I avoided combat as much as I could. Ferinstance, I got in through a little bit of cunning and a satchel of high-explosives," she explained. "Blasted a tunnel past the seal to circumvent it, then bluffed the guards into letting me in."

The moment of danger passed. Shinki made a little interested noise, nodding in acknowledgement of a job well done. "Refreshing for an invader to rely on something more than brute force. And then what happened?" she asked, her eyes half-closed but alert.

"I crashed a party, questioned some civilians, asked for directions." Kotohime leaned back in her seat, starting to enjoy telling the story. "My counterparts showed up – I should mention I'm a police officer too – and they were ready to fight, but I used some more of that cunning to evade them. Someone told me where your place was, so I headed that way."

"Where you encountered Yuki and Mai," said Shinki with a slight nod. At Kotohime's surprised look, she smiled gently. "Their magic still clings to you."

"They started it," the princess said quickly.

"That is quite likely. Both are eager to test themselves against Makai's foes, though for very different reasons," the demoness commented. "It is hardly surprising that they leapt at the chance to face you, and I could hardly blame you for defending yourself. It would seem they put up a fierce fight," she noted, gesturing at a scorched patch on Kotohime's robes.

"I just wanted to keep moving," complained Kotohime. "But I guess the cunning failed. Or rather, it was used in conjunction with a little bit of violence."

"A little bit," Shinki repeated, amused.

"Just a _teensie_ bit of violence," Kotohime insisted.

"Well, I must admire your restraint." Shinki took another sip of her tea. "I did not sense their deaths, so you either eluded them or subdued them before moving on. They will both be mortified, of course, they spent years training to avoid another such defeat."

"They did you proud," the princess praised. "Worthy opponents, both of them."

"And then you arrived in Pandæmonium, worked Yumeko into a filthy temper, and somehow slipped past her to boldly stride into the bedchambers of Makai's creator," Shinki finished. "Quite a tale." She leaned forward then, her silver-gray eyes meeting Kotohime's gaze. "So the obvious question is: why? Why have you come to the realm of demons, a land that has been sealed off from your kind for years? What would you ask of a goddess?"

Kotohime took a deep breath, her heart pounding. This was it. This was the big moment. "I'm looking for someone," she said.

"Someone different from the many you have encountered thus far, I presume?"

"A prisoner," Kotohime went on.

"Ah." Shinki leaned back slightly, her eyes half-closed again, aloof and mysterious. Good gods, Kotohime would _kill_ to look so cool. "Makai does indeed house a number of prisoners," the demon queen admitted. "Many are quite dangerous creatures, whom I cannot imagine a princess - or a police officer - would wish to see loose on the world."

A memory stirred and struggled against Kotohime's common sense. "Like a Buddhist nun?" asked the princess with a trace of defiance.

Shinki smiled with recognition almost immediately. "I know of whom you speak," she said, before sighing with regret. "Many of Makai's prisoners are monsters, but not all of them, unfortunately."

"So why keep them, you know, prisoner?"

"Because I swore to," Shinki said calmly. "Makai is a secure realm – most of the time, at any rate – and some of our neighbors would see us handle threats that they themselves could not hope to contain. Since the alternative would be to let some truly malicious beasts roam freely, I agree to keep them in Hokkai."

Kotohime was staring off into the distance, her mind afire with the idea of being the warden of a transplanar prison. "And the whole place would have to be wired to self-destruct as a last-ditch failsafe," she decided.

Shinki's brow crinkled with confusion. "Your pardon?"

The princess shook herself out of her reverie. "Just planning ahead, please continue."

"Very well. As I said," Shinki went on, "not all of Makai's prisoners are monstrous. A handful are exiles, heretics, political prisoners and other such 'undesirables.' Since they would otherwise risk execution, I agree to keep them safe – and alive – in Makai. I cannot let them roam free or break the terms of my agreements, but I can do my best to keep them comfortable." Her face fell as she gazed sorrowfully out of her chamber's tall windows at the bleak wasteland surrounding her castle. "It is heartbreaking, but house arrest is the best I can do for them..."

Kotohime took advantage of the silence to get some tea in her dry mouth. "Uh, I'm not sure how to break this to you, or even if I should be telling you this, but-"

"Oh, I am well aware of Byakuren Hijiri's 'escape,'" Shinki said with a warm smile. "Why else do you think she was unguarded when her disciples entered Hokkai to free her?"

The princess arched her eyebrow. "Doesn't letting her go kinda break your word to keep her imprisoned?"

"The agreement was to keep her safely sealed inside Hokkai to the best of my ability," the demoness said with a flippant wave of her hand. "But since the force that sprung her included individuals who had previously penetrated my defenses, and who had only grown more powerful since then, well, obviously it would have been suicide to send my forces against them."

Kotohime nodded in sage agreement. "The only real option would be to pull the guards back. I'm sure those that had her sealed would understand."

"Had they not died several generations ago, anyway," said Shinki. She took a sip of tea to hide her grin. "I was delighted to see her followers rescue her. Byakuren is a wonderful woman, in spite of her flaws." She smiled with nostalgia. "We would debate theology or ethics for hours on end, trade koans, attempt to convert each other to various faiths. She introduced me to some aspects of magic I was unfamiliar with, and proved an adept student of the arcane arts in turn." Shinki's smile became slightly devious. "Perhaps loosing such a person on Gensokyo is my act of vengeance? After all, her philosophy is somewhat controversial."

"I dunno, seems like the status quo gets upset at least twice a year these days," shrugged Kotohime. "But last I heard she's fitting in alright. Got a temple going and everything, even if it's mostly youkai who go there."

"I'm glad she's doing well. Please send my regards."

"Sure thing."

There was a pause in the conversation, interrupted only by the delicious tea. "So," said Shinki after she finished off her cup, "now that your attempt at misdirection has run its course-"

"I wasn't stalling, I got distracted," protested the princess.

"-may I ask who exactly you came here to find? And why, if you are searching for a prisoner, did you come here instead of Hokkai?"

"Logic," Kotohime answered, leaning forward to rest her elbows on her knees. "My target is far too powerful to be held in Hokkai, and could only hope to be contained by nothing less than the personal care of Makai's creator."

"I see," said Shinki, her face utterly inscrutable. "So you intend to storm my citadel in a rescue mission? Face me in combat?"

Kotohime felt a presence out of sight, and knew without turning around the Yumeko was standing behind her chair. "If it comes to that, yes," she declared, her face set with determination. "Such a battle would be the second-most epic throwdown I'll have taken part in, and though I could face annihilation, justice demands nothing less. But," she added, "I was hoping you'd be open to negotiation."

Shinki tilted her head slightly, her weird side-ponytail flopping a bit. "Oh? And what would you offer the ruler of Makai? Treasure? Treaties? A hostage of equivalent value?"

"Information." Kotohime pushed herself out of her chair, strolling casually over to the fireplace, putting on a show of studying the crackling orange flames while ensuring that both Shinki and Yumeko were where she could see them. "Information that could decide the fate of all of Makai. Information concerning the Lady Shinki's so-called 'servant,'" she said grandly.

Yumeko twitched, her entire body tensing. Shinki shot her a warning glance. "I am curious what you could possibly know about my creation that I would not," she said to Kotohime.

"I'm a police officer – it's not about what you know but what evidence you have," Kotohime retorted. "And I've got evidence suggesting that you might not know your maid as well as you thought. Evidence of a conspiracy, a plot to usurp leadership of Makai through the use of dark magic!" she announced, dramatically flinging her arm out to point at Yumeko.

There was a blur as the maid's arms chopped in front of her, while at nearly the same moment Shinki idly lifted a hand, reducing a trio of hurtling longswords to vapor before they had gotten halfway to Kotohime. "Please, continue," said Shinki patiently.

"Behold!" Kotohime reached down her sleeve and pulled out the item she'd found in the storeroom, flourishing it like the figurative lantern of truth. Shinki's eyes widened in shock as she shot to her feet, while next to her Yumeko cringed. "Aha, the guilty conscience!" the princess said triumphantly

"Oh please, _please_ be careful with that," pleaded Shinki, a hand to her breast.

Kotohime gave her a confident smile. "I can assure you, ma'am, I have some experience with hexes and curses." She gestured at the object in her hand: a crudely-made cloth doll with mismatched button eyes, gray yarn for hair, and scraps of red felt for a dress, but unmistakably an effigy of Shinki. "Though I haven't studied voodoo _per se_, I understand the principles-"

"You're an idiot," interrupted Yumeko flatly, disdain plain on her face.

The policewoman scowled at her. "That's beside the point. _You_ on the other hand are hexing Makai's chief executive, weakening her to the point that you can usurp her position! I can only guess at how long you've…"

Kotohime trailed off as Shinki quietly stepped towards her, eyes fixed on the incriminating object. The princess found herself wordlessly handing over the simple doll, which the demon queen took with a sigh of relief, closing her eyes and clutching it to her bosom for a moment.

"I'm grateful you didn't damage it," she said softly. "I'd been searching for it for years. It must have gotten lost while I was rebuilding…" she stroked the yarn hair on the doll's head affectionately. "This is a priceless, irreplaceable treasure." She strode across her room and reached to the top of a wardrobe, where Kotohime spotted two other dolls – a blonde figure in a red dress and white apron, and a smaller shape, child-sized compared to the others, with fair hair and a white and blue dress. Shinki carefully arranged the dolls so they were all sitting together, and stepped back with a wistful smile on her face.

"I suppose I must thank you for finding the Lady Shinki's lost keepsake," Yumeko said with a sour grimace.

Kotohime scratched her cheek. "So, uh… not a voodoo doll, then?"

"Certainly not," Shinki said softly as she turned back toward her guest. "There is no malice behind this object, nor did Yumeko have a hand in its design. Though I do imagine its creator would be quite embarrassed if you confronted her with it," she added with a smile. "All artists have a low opinion of their early work, and this dollmaker in particular has progressed far."

"Oh." Kotohime coughed uncomfortably. "Well. This is intensely awkward. And now I don't have anything to offer for your prisoner."

"Whom you still haven't specified," Shinki pointed out.

"Not sure there's a point now," the princess said glumly, kicking at the floor. "My trump card was a dud and you've got me in checkmate. May as well throw in the towel and-"

"Stop butchering metaphors and give us a name, dammit!" Yumeko shouted. When she saw Shinki's disapproving look, she made a fuss about smoothing the wrinkles of her apron.

"Yes, do go on," the lady of Makai told Kotohime. "I am quite curious as to who would justify today's disturbances."

"Very well then." Kotohime cleared her throat, then started pacing back and forth, her hands behind her back, in full Accusatory Mode again. "The person I'm seeking is quite possibly the most important prisoner ever to be held in Makai. Someone who was last seen entering this realm during the Incident ten... um, or maybe five... seven... uh, _several_ years ago." She coughed again. "This prisoner was not only very powerful, but also intimately affiliated with the Hakurei shrine and its maiden."

"I see,"said Shinki in a quiet voice. Her wings shifted slightly as she turned to walk over to the nearest window. "Your inquiries should come as no surprise," she said as she stared out across the blasted, icy wastes. "Though in all honesty, I expected someone like you to come here years ago. After all, it is only natural to wonder what became of her. I expect her sudden disappearance-"

"Wait, _her_?" repeated a confused Kotohime.

Shinki half-turned, the shadows that fell across her face briefly revealing the pattern of glowing lines Kotohime saw earlier. "What do you mean? Are you not seeking-"

"I'm after _Genji_," the princess explained. "Who the hell are _you_ talking about?"

Yumeko and her mistress exchanged an incredulous look. "Who is this 'Genji?'" asked the maid.

"Reimu Hakurei's noble steed," Shinki told her, a surprised half-smile on her face as she gazed at Kotohime in disbelief. "A wise and venerable turtle that the shrine maiden once rode upon to fly. That _is_ who you are seeking, correct?"

"Correct," said Kotohime with a curt nod. "From the start of her career, Reimu was never seen without the honorable terrapin. However," she continued in an accusatory tone, "after she returned from Makai and went on to solve more Incidents, there's been a conspicuous lack of bearded, flying turtles."

"I was not aware amphibians could grow facial hair," said Yumeko flatly. Shinki's wings jerked with what could have been a suppressed giggle.

"The conclusion is obvious," Kotohime went on, undaunted. "The lady of Makai took Genji hostage to-"

"Your pardon, but did you check behind the Hakurei shrine?" interrupted Shinki politely.

Kotohime blinked. "Wha?"

"There is a pond," Shinki went on, smiling serenely, "amongst the cherry grove between the shrine and the hills. Since the shrine's maiden learned to fly under her own power, she has no further need for Genji as a mount. When last I heard, he was happily retired in the pond behind the shrine. I'm sure Reimu consults him for advice as readily as she did in days past," she finished with a mischievous twinkle in her eye.

The princess clapped a hand to her forehead. "The _pond!_ Of course! Nobody would think to look for a flying turtle in a _pond,_ and he'd be close enough to enjoy the protection of the premier power in Gensokyo!"

"And as a turtle, he would certainly enjoy the chance to take a swim whenever he wished," supplied Shinki with suspicious earnestness.

"He _is_ wise," breathed Kotohime. "I'll go find him at once." She bowed to the other two women. "Thank you for your assistance, most honorable and beneficent ruler of Makai. It has been an incredible journey through your domain, and though I could happily stay here for weeks on end, I'm afraid my duty calls-"

"Wait," began Yumeko, her face turning red, "You just barge in here, make the most _outrageous_ accusations-"

Shinki silenced her by simply raising a hand and giving the maid a calm glance. "Your visit has been a most unexpected surprise, princess," she said to Kotohime, returning the bow. "I shall instruct Makai's guardians to let you return to your kingdom without incident."

"Yeah, I've had enough Incidents," Kotohime agreed distractedly. "The _pond_. Wonder who else is hiding down there?" she mused as she headed towards the door. She froze in half-step, turning to gesture at the trio of teacups. "Oh hey, can I take these with me?" she asked.

The demon queen nodded. "Yumeko, prepare our guest a beverage for-"

"Sorry, I meant _these_," the princess clarified, walking over to the two empty cups and taking out the sodden teabags. "I've got some plans for them."

Shinki and Yumeko both blinked and looked at each other. "Do you now?" said Shinki. "Ah, very well, feel free-"

"Groovy." Kotohime swept the goods into a small glass bottle, then paused one more time on the room's threshold. "Nice castle you have here, by the way. Could use another rug or two or hundred, but that's just my opinion. Well, ciao!" And with that she slipped through, closing the door behind her.

The goddess and her servant stared at the portal for several seconds.

"Does… does she know the way out?" asked Yumeko.

"I don't think so. She just stepped into the master bathroom," said Shinki, fighting back laughter.

The door opened again, and Kotohime stuck her head back in, looking sheepish. "Um…"

"Yumeko, please show our guest her way home," commanded Shinki.

"I would've found it eventually," the woman in question insisted as the maid led her out.

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_That took_ far_ too long._

_This was the first Kotohime story I came up with, back before the "pilot" episode or even the Tool-Shed Incident. It was as much a story about her as it was an excuse for some worldbuilding, to put together my fairly specific conception of Makai. So I saved it for later in favor of more Kotohime-centric plots. _

_Maybe 40% or so of the 'fic was finished months and months ago, so I thought it'd be quick and easy to finish up, but filling in the blanks took much, _much_ longer than expected, due to my usual laziness, bouts of unplanned creativity, absences of creativity, sudden ides for future Kotohime stories, a sudden idea for a completely different fanfic, and a bunch of real life stuff that just made finding the time and energy to sit down and write very difficult. Plus I reinstaled _Civilization IV_, which is nothing but bad news for everything else I could be doing._

_So my apologies for anyone who was feeling left hanging. That's why I like to keep each "chapter" as a self-contained story. There's too many fan fics and webcomics and whatnot out there that came to a sudden and jarring end when the author just ran out of steam, and one of my goals from the very start has been to avoid doing that. Hence my reluctance to get into some other fanfic ideas I have, because I'd want to finish the whole thing before posting it._

_If the Tool-Shed Incident began as a premise that I ran with, making up the rest as I went along, this story started as a punchline and grew backwards from there. It was originally a lot shorter, and Kotohime didn't encounter anyone after entering Makai until she reached Pandæmonium, but I wanted to have her amongst normal Makaijin, and that led to the hovering party platforms, and then I needed an excuse for the party, and that led to Makai's hydroelectric plant, and then I thought it'd be nice to throw in references to some classic characters, so then Yuki and Mai got a fight scene, and hey wouldn't it be neat if Mai was one of the guards in the beginning, and so on. It's really a rambling travelouge with severe pacing problems, and long sections of nothing but Kotohime admiring the scenery or talking for page after page. I probably should have cut the crystal forest entirely, and the Byakuren angle is a kinda shoehorned bit of speculation too.  
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_But eh, it's a Kotohime story, so some rambling is probably appropriate._

_I like Shinki a lot, and my view of Makai is as a sort of anti-hell, a peaceful, pleasant world that though quite alien is still recognizable as a functioning civilization. I'm not sure how much if any of this is canonically accurate (PC-98 status aside), as a lot of it comes from inferences and deductions and me filling in the blanks of what I've gleaned from _Mystic Square_. So take it all with a healthy serving of salt, and by no means treat this as a definitive description of Makai._

_I've been experimenting with page formats to get around this site's hatred of double-spaced lines between paragraphs, hence the weird little -x-'s everywhere. On the upside, you can now use your internet browser to jump to a specific section by searching for -#-. Pardon the mess._

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"That was certainly not what I was expecting," Shinki remarked after the door closed behind Yumeko and Kotohime.

"She's not the type of girl you can try to predict," replied her guest, not so much emerging from the shadows as she was coalescing from them. Soon Shinki was joined by a woman in a deep blue dress and matching cape, capped off by a pointed wizard's hat, all embellished with gold trim and assorted astrological symbols woven into the fabric. But even fully-revealed there was a ghostly quality to her - her torso seemed solid enough, but the folds of her clothing faded away into mist around where her legs would be. Her hair was waist-length and vividly green, a color matched by her eyes, and her face was both proud and devious, twisted into a mischevious smile.

"You can't plan for her behavior because even _she_ doesn't know what she's going to do next," Mima continued. "The best you can do is point her in a different direction and hope she doesn't bounce back to hit you in the face."

"You've met her before?" asked the demon queen, tilting her head slightly.

Mima rolled her eyes and instead of responding picked up the untouched third teacup on the table, taking a large gulp from its contents. "Yeah," she said after swallowing. "A dueling tournament of a sort. I don't really want to talk about it."

"Interesting. I rather expected her to be looking for _you_ instead of that turtle."

"I'm not sure she even remembers me," the phantasmal magician replied with a shrug. She took a seat - or lowered herself to hover level with the chair's cushion in a seated pose - and stared deep into her drink.

Shinki's amused smile faded. "You're disappointed."

She got silence in reply.

"Were you hoping that someone was searching for you?" asked Shinki, closely studying the other woman-like entity.

Mima tossed her green hair flippantly, her face disdainful. "Certainly not! Reimu was becoming a total bore, and Marisa is doing just fine without me."

The goddess of Maikai smiled. "I would go so far as to say that she has surpassed her mistress."

Mima scoffed at that. "Of course not. It'll be centuries before she learns even half of the magic I've forgotten." A pause. "Still… not _surpassed_, definitely, but she comes close," Mima admitted.

"And from what I've been hearing, she has become quite an effective problem-solver. Certainly a step up from the days she was helping _cause_ the mischief, isn't it?"

The other woman said nothing.

"And she still misses you," Shinki said softly.

"Oh sure, I just bet you can tell from here," sneered the dark spirit. "Read her heart and mind across the dimensions, did you?"

"Marisa is, at her core, a decent person," the other woman said placidly. "Of course she would miss you."

More silence.

"Though," Shinki added, "I must admit some relief that the fourth member of your troupe hasn't returned to look for you."

Mima finally stirred, her expressionless face returning to a more familiar cocky smile. "Aww, she's not that bad. Just give her something to sink her teeth into and she can be pretty cheerful. Homicidal, but cheerful."

"I've kept less frightful creatures in Hokkai," Shinki muttered darkly. "So, now that my latest guest is gone, what will you do now?" she asked to change the subject. "You're still welcome in Makai, of course, or you may feel free to depart. Perhaps you're eager to see what Gensokyo has become in your absence?"

"Ready to be rid of me, eh?" Mima smirked. Her good mood faded quickly. "Anyway, I already know what's going on back ho- back there," she corrected. "I've got my ways. From what I've seen it's getting pretty complicated. All these new power blocs, bunch of schemers making a scene every few months, new faces coming in every year. So _messy_. They're tripping on each other's toes! No, if I went back I'd-" a shudder "-_blend in_."

"Oh I very much doubt that," Shinki assured her with a faint smile. She went back to gazing out of the floor-to-ceiling windows. "But you must do what you think best, of course. Perhaps you are content to simply fade away into half-remembered legends."

A surly silence.

Shinki pressed a fingertip against her chin, looking thoughtful. "Though I cannot help but wonder – if things the mortal world have forgotten come to Gensokyo, what becomes of that which Gensokyo forgets?"

"What am I supposed to do?" Mima shot back. "Just pop back in, say 'hey everyone, I'm back,' and pretend like I never left? 'Oh yeah, I was sleeping under the Hakurei Shrine the whole time,' that sort of thing?"

"I doubt there'd be many objections."

"Or maybe I should just pretend all those years never happened, huh?" Mima continued. "Just show up one day and say it's my first time in Gensokyo. 'Oh no, you don't know me, even though I happen to look _exactly like_ someone you may vaguely remember from over a decade ago.' Would that be better? No, wait, I should probably buy a different outfit and get a haircut to help complete the illusion. They'll never catch on." The green-haired woman snorted her contempt at the idea. "Screw _that_. There's no place for me there anymore."

"Gensokyo may be a small piece of paradise," Shinki said, "but it's not _that_ small."

Silence settled on the dark chamber.

"I couldn't just show up out of nowhere," Mima said suddenly. "I'd have to make things interesting. Get the sort of attention my return would deserve."

"Make an Incident out of yourself, you mean?" asked Shinki, her grin invisible in the shadows. "Hypothetically speaking, of course."

"Oh yes. _If_ I were to go back."

"But you're happy staying here?"

"Well…" the other figure shifted uncertainly. "I should probably be going. Makai is great and all, but I don't think I should get settled."

"Yes, it would be a shame if someone saw you before you were ready to make your grand return."

"_If_ I were thinking of doing something like that," her guest said stubbornly.

"Of course."

"I'm perfectly happy being on my own."

Shinki turned to give her friend a look. "You're only as alone as you choose to be."

Mima made an utterly disgusted face. "Of all the sappy, clichéd nonsense that's ever come out of your mouth..." she muttered, appalled. "But what about you, eh?"

The demoness blinked. "Me?"

"Yeah, you! You're just content to stay here, or do _you_ have plans for a big return?"

Shinki looked vaguely amused by the prospect. "I'm not sure what you mean by 'return,' since I haven't actually _gone_ anywhere."

"But you aren't tempted to maybe visit Gensokyo, hmm?" Mima cocked her head to peer at her, the magnificent hat remaining firmly affixed to her head in defiance of gravity. "Maybe visit a certain magician?"

"That 'certain magician' is doing quite well," replied Shinki evenly. "I may be both goddess and mother to my people, but all parents should be happy to let their children stand on their own. The surest sign of success is my ability to retire."

"'Retire,' right," the green-haired apparition sneered. "Interesting choice of words for sulking in this gloomy old castle."

"You're making me reconsider my hospitality," warned Shinki. She wagged her finger in a playful gesture, but Mima still saw the flash of scarlet in the demon queen's eyes and the brief impression of six unearthly wings unfurling behind her.

"Ah well," the magician said, making a show of rising from her seat and stretching unconcernedly. "Been an amusing afternoon, or whatever the hell time it is in this place," she said, "but I think it's time to go. Maybe catch the fireworks on my way out."

"Fireworks?" repeated Shinki.

"You weren't paying attention," said Mima in a teasing singsong. "Kotohime said she got let in by your guards, right? So..." she trailed off and gave her hostess an expectant grin.

"So she has no way of actually _leaving_ Makai," finished Shinki, closing her eyes wearily. "I'll send Yumeko after her," she said as she strode purposefully towards the door. She stopped at the last second and looked back at her guest. "Mima? Despite what I said, I don't think they've forgotten you."

The dark spirit shrugged, inscrutable again. "Maybe they haven't, maybe they have. Maybe they should." A brief grin flickered across her face. "Maybe I'll have to jog their memory. I don't know. We'll see." With that said she faded away, returning to the shadows once more, as though she had never existed. Or perhaps, Shinki mentally amended, preferring a more positive spin on things, perhaps it was more as if she could emerge from them at any moment.

She continued on to see a maid about a princess.

-x-


	6. Kotohime and Her Heart's Desire

**_Kotohime and Her Heart's Desire_**

Princess Kotohime of Gensokyo, chief of police, planar adventurer, and recovering stamp collector, froze in mid-step, her sandaled foot hovering just over the surface of the dirt road. "What was I doing again?" she asked, blinking her rich red eyes.

"Um, talking?" came a young girl's voice from behind her. Kotohime glanced over her shoulder and saw a familiar fairy fluttering nearby, ice-crystal wings glinting in the morning sunlight, her blue-haired head tilted in puzzlement.

"'bout what?" Kotohime pressed.

"Uh…" Cirno's ultramarine eyes darted about as she struggled to overcome her short attention span, her mouth working like she had something stuck between her teeth. "Something something justice something law as my torch something streets-"

"Ah, yes! These streets!" Kotohime's face broke into a wide, easy smile. "Let us proceed, Lieutenant Cirno."

Kotohime shook off her momentary confusion and led the march, her companion hovering close behind as they journeyed along the village's main avenue. They drew admiring glances from passersby as they progressed, and Kotohime couldn't blame them – with her flawless features, flowing purple kimono, long red hair bound in a loose ponytail, and jitte bouncing in its sash on her hip, Kotohime was the very image of princessdom and a damn fine-looking policewoman.

And Cirno was… well, she still looked like a slightly tomboyish nine-year-old in a simple blue dress, her slightly paler hair topped with a big blue bow, but the shiny badge bouncing on fairy's shirt helped bolster her authority.

"These streets," Kotohime lectured, "well, we've gotta walk them-"

"Does that mean I have to land?" interrupted Cirno. "'cause I lost my shoes again and I don't wanna have to wash my socks-"

"Figure of speech," said Kotohime quickly. She frowned before adding, "Though you probably _should_ land from time to time to build up your policewoman's instincts. Spend enough time walking about and you can tell when trouble's brewing just from your citysense."

"Oh. Is that what you were feeling earlier?" asked the fairy.

"No, that was just a moment of total existential disorientation," Kotohime replied with a careless wave of her hand. "Anyway, streets. You've gotta walk – or hover above – these streets like you own them. Well, technically _I_ own them, but it's still important to project an air of confidence. Which shouldn't be a problem for you, should it?" she added with a grin.

"Yeah! Or, uh, no?"

"And it's important to stay visible," the princess went on, nodding at a dumpy older woman fixing a sign to a shop's front window. Hey, that was a good price for shoes. "It lets the people know that the law's out there, looking out for them, and also ready to give them a beating if they get any ideas."

They had to pause for a moment as Keine Kamishirasawa led a gaggle of schoolchildren across the street like a mother duckling, Kotohime exchanging a quick greeting with the pale-tressed local teacher.

"So doing police stuff is a lot of walking - or flying – around?" summarized Cirno. She didn't sound happy about it.

"Well, the boring parts," replied Kotohime with a winsome smile. "The rest is all exciting chases, tense investigations, sexy suspects to interrogate, heart-stopping battles, that sort of stuff."

The little fairy's big blue eyes got even bigger. "Awesome!"

"Oh it _is_. Now, what else was I talking about?" Kotohime glanced up at the sun, idly wondering how much ultraviolet protection the Great Hakurei Border afforded the inhabitants of Gensokyo. "Ah yes, the law! Well, the law is our shield," she lectured, leading Cirno around a stopped horsecart and the pair of men unloading crates from it. "It defends us, we can use it to protect others, but like a good shield it can also be used to bash people's faces in. Though if someone breaks the law, it doesn't reduce the shield's effectiveness any, so maybe it isn't a metaphor that bears close inspection." She glanced back and saw the confusion on her fairy companion's face. "Still with me, Cirno?"

"Uh…"

Kotohime slowed to a stop with a sigh, turning to face her subordinate. "Honestly, I'm not expecting you to take notes or anything-"

But Cirno was pointing past her shoulder. "Is that Rumia?" she asked.

Kotohime shaded her eyes and searched above the village's modest skyline. Sure enough, a little globe of darkness, as though midnight had come early for a very specific part of the clear blue sky, was zig-zagging in their general direction.

…At least until it dipped too low and clipped a weathervane. A girl's voice cried out and suddenly the darkness vanished, revealing a childish figure tumbling down the slope of a roof before landing in the street with an "oomph!" and a cloud of dust. A bystander started laughing.

Kotohime shot the man an annoyed glance before striding forward and helping the little darkness youkai up. Rumia was about Cirno's size and apparent age, though her hair was short and blonde, and she wore a black dress and vest over a white blouse. She looked up at Kotohime with cherry-red eyes before wincing and shading her cherubic face with an arm – and then she disappeared behind a four-foot-wide sphere of night once more.

The policewoman sighed in exasperation. "Deputy Rumia, what did I say about flying blind?"

"Um… don't?" came a sheepish voice from the blot of shadows.

"And what did I say about hiding yourself?" Kotohime went on.

The orb of darkness scooted back onto the sidewalk, under a building's awning, before vanishing to reveal Rumia again. "Sorry, chief," she said meekly, fidgeting and looking at her shoes.

"And you're not wearing your badge!" the policewoman exclaimed. "How are people supposed to know you're on police business instead of rampaging around like an uncivilized youkai? It's as much for your own safety as-"

Rumia whimpered and disappeared again.

Kotohime stopped mid-tirade and sighed. Yes, Rumia was technically a man-eating monster, and yes, as a subordinate you had to repeat your instructions a few times before she got it. But it was simply impossible to stay angry at her, even after she'd latched onto someone's arm like a bulldog.

So Kotohime dropped to a knee and reached into the black sphere to ruffle Rumia's hair companionably until her darkness went out. "Eh, I'm no good at being the bad guy," she said. "That's my evil twin's job. Just try to do better next time, right?"

The darkness youkai made a sound of halfhearted protest and took a step back out of reach, trying to get her hair back into shape. "Is my ribbon still on?" she asked anxiously, spinning about in a quick circle as she tried to look at the side of her own head.

"It's fine," Kotohime assured her.

"Awww," pouted Rumia.

For some reason, the deceptively childish youkai couldn't touch the red ribbon tied around a lock of hair on the side of her head, no matter how much she wanted to take it off. Kotohime had done some research on the matter, and her findings suggested that the ribbon was either the result of some youkai hunter's prank, a cursed fashion accessory, or a seal limiting Rumia's power so that she didn't turn into an umbral avatar of the void and slaughter everything in Gensokyo with a colossal blade of razor-sharp shadows. Kotohime kept meaning to yank the little charm off to see what happened, but things kept coming up.

Lucky for her she'd remembered this time. "Hold still, I'll get it," said Kotohime as she reached forward-

"So why'd you come rushing over?" asked Cirno, blundering in front of Kotohime to address her friend.

"Um, I'm supposed to be getting help," Rumia answered, glancing down nervously and toeing the boardwalk. "Mystia sent me. Something happened."

"A crime?" asked Kotohime, ribbons forgotten.

The youkai nodded. "Someone's murdered Marisa!"

Gensokyo's police chief opened her mouth to begin a stern lecture on the priority of certain messages, but stopped herself. If the land's most infamous witch _was_ dead, her condition was technically stable, so there wasn't any rush. Instead Kotohime favored Rumia with a curt nod and gave Cirno a cool and confident look.

"Well ladies, it looks like we've got ourselves an investigation to conduct." She straightened up and flung an arm out in the direction of the Forest of Magic. "To the crime scene!"

-x-

* * *

><p><em>In the magical land of Gensokyo, justice is delivered by two separate, yet equally important groups: the youkai-exterminating vigilantes who investigate and resolve Incidents, and the princess-policewoman who occasionally puts one of the aforementioned vigilantes in a jail cell. This story concerns the latter more than the former, though who knows what will happen after the plot twist in the second act. There might even be a ninja or two. Or possibly lesbians.<em>

_The story you are about to read gets pretty bizarre. Names have not been changed, to better shame those involved for their misbehavior._

* * *

><p>-2-<p>

_Kirisame Residence  
>9:51 am<em>

Kotohime had been by Marisa Kirisame's cottage on numerous occasions, and considered the two-storied home tucked away in a forest clearing to be a bit foreign, but charming, what with its dark shingled roof and tan stucco walls and ivy crawling everywhere. But the gaping hole it now sported in place of its front door didn't really go with the décor, she decided as she led her squad to the crime scene. Charred bits and pieces of building littered the already-untidy front lawn, and the two windows left on that facing of the house were both shattered.

Kotohime marched up the curved, paved path leading to the house, Cirno and Rumia in tow. She nodded at the girl standing guard at the entrance: Mystia Lorelei, an avian youkai who had run a grilled lamprey stand before Cirno had convinced her to join the force along with her friends… somehow. Kotohime was a bit hazy on the details, particularly why an ice fairy, darkness youkai, and fairly successful night sparrow, among others, would have a reason to hang out together.

To begin with, Mystia was taller than her child-sized companions, mature enough to manage a successful business, and sufficiently cunning to synergize her ability to cause night blindness with legends about certain foods' curative powers – qualities Kotohime hoped the night sparrow could use for the good of Gensokyo instead of scamming late night snackers. Mystia wore her usual long brown dress, and her bright pink hair was capped with a shapeless hat bearing her shiny policewoman's badge and crowned with some sort of winged ornament. Her own wings were pinkish with purple highlights, not colors Kotohime usually associated with night sparrows, but then again she wasn't an ornithologist.

"Morning, captain," said Mystia by way of greeting, her usually musical and downright chirpy voice betraying fatigue. Kotohime had her running the day shift for the same reason she'd had Cirno working nights for a while, because it seemed like the sort of borderline sadistic challenge a rookie was supposed to go through during training.

"Officer Lorelei," replied the princess with a curt nod. She scanned the blackened, ragged edges of the hole where Marisa's front door used to be. "Why isn't this taped up?"

Mystia blinked. "What?"

"Crime scene tape, bright yellow color, 'Do Not Cross' on it?"

The night sparrow looked at her friends, hoping for backup. "I've never seen anything like that," she protested, her wings ruffling irritably. "Was I supposed-"

"Though maybe you're right, it might be premature," interrupted Kotohime as she stepped over the threshold and into the house, her deputies following her. "We still need to confirm that a crime has occurred."

Mystia made a choking sound. "Are you _serious?"_ she asked, gesturing at the living room.

There was a lot of junk strewn about in heaps that bordered on "drifts," though that was perfectly normal. Marisa had a habit of collecting things whether or not their previous owners were done with them, only to quickly lose interest in her new acquisitions and let them pile up. But that familiar chaos had been multiplied – the house's furniture was in complete disarray, wooden chairs in splinters, and a second-hand couch Kotohime had quite liked now in shreds, its stuffing hanging out as if the sofa had been disemboweled. Lamp oil stained the rug, a puddle compared to the long red smear taking up most of the floor and part of a wall.

In the middle of it was a ragged bit of black cloth recognizable as the remains of Marisa's trademark pointy witch hat. A pair of stockinged legs gently swayed over the staircase's landing, the blue dress above them familiar to anyone who'd seen Marisa's fellow magician Alice Margatroid.

Cirno groaned and doubled over at the sight, causing Kotohime to smile with nostalgia. Ah, to be young again, investigating her first murder-suicide…

"So, girls," she said brightly, "what are we looking at?"

"Cirno throwing up," answered Rumia. There was a growing pile of slippery ice chunks on the floor beneath the fairy, which Kotohime mentally filed away under "gross, but interesting."

"Besides that. What can you piece together from the crime scene?" she asked, sweeping her hand across the spectacle.

The darkness youkai looked around, all wide-eyed innocence, her mouth hanging open slightly. "Looks like a lot of blood," she ventured, not in the least bit bothered by the sight. If anything it made her look a bit peckish.

"What turns someone into a red stain?" asked Mystia, her face pale.

"Magic?" suggested Rumia. "Like the vampire girl with the holiday wings? She could do that, right?"

"Though any magician of sufficient talent – such as myself – would be able to turn their foe into a fine red mist," Kotohime reminded everyone.

Mystia tapped her chin with a talon-like fingernail. "Or Alice," she added darkly.

"But why?" asked Cirno as she pushed herself upright, swiping at her mouth again. She still looked shaken, but the nausea was being pushed back by righteous outrage, Kotohime noted with approval. "Why'd Alice want to hurt Marisa? They're friends!"

"If only there was some sort of note left behind by the killer to explain his or her motive," Kotohime lamented, before turning her gaze towards the ceiling and whistling softly to herself. The others stared at her until Rumia spotted the piece of stationary lying on the floor under Alice's feet.

"Oh," said the little youkai girl, darkening slightly as she blushed – that is to say, everything around her got shadier for a moment. She hurried over and retrieved the piece of paper, waving it triumphantly. "It says…" Rumia trailed off as she stared down at the note for a few long seconds, before giving up and handing it over to Mystia.

The night sparrow squinted at the paper, looked around furtively, and produced a pair of slim reading glasses from somewhere. _Adorable_ pink-rimmed reading glasses, Kotohime amended after Mystia somehow hooked the things on her feathered, owl-like ears. Thus bespectacled, the bird youkai read aloud: "'I am tired of treachery, of the endless charade. Marisa is mine, she always has been. We will be together at the very end.'" She lowered the note, solemn-faced. "That's all it says. Guess it's as good as a confession."

Kotohime just _hmm_ed to herself and took the paper from Mystia, examining it with her own eyes. Good penmanship, she noted approvingly, though the writer forgot the signature.

"I still don't know why Alice'd want to do this," Cirno spoke up. She looked confused, and angry about being confused.

"Well, you know how she was," Mystia said with a dismissive shrug. "Absolutely Marisa-crazy. Unhinged. A creepy stalker who made effigies of her romantic rivals."

Kotohime tapped her chin, thinking hard. Something was definitely wrong here. The princess strolled over to inspect the red stain again. She'd walked into the house wondering if there'd been a crime at all… "Rumia?" she asked. "Taste this."

The little blonde girl-shaped monster blinked. "Huh?"

"It's not cannibalism when _you_ drink blood. Go on, have a taste," Kotohime ordered. "Just don't fall off the wagon and start gnawing on citizens again," she added with a stern wag of her finger.

Rumia shrugged and dragged her index finger across the stain, then sucked on it for a moment. Her deep red eyes widened. "Hey, that's not blood! It's… fruit?"

Cirno crouched down and leaned forward, sniffing the floor. "Strawberries?"

Ah, the telling lack of the coppery stench of spilled blood. Go nose! The police chief moved on to the body hanging over the foot of the staircase, staring dispassionately up at it. That trademark Alice dress, neck-length flaxen hair hanging from the slumped head, a well-tied noose around the neck strung to a light fixture on the stairwell's high ceiling… it _looked_ a lot like a dead Alice, but….

"S-seriously, fruit?" stammered Mystia. "W-what's going on? Are we being pranked?"

"Someone's definitively toying with us," agreed Kotohime. She prodded the hanged figure with her jitte, noting the texture and sensations as she set it a-swaying. "See what I did there? Toying? Because this is a doll," she explained, giving the form another good poke. "Feels like wood."

"And it has thingies on its elbows," Cirno spoke up.

"Good eyes, lieutenant," said Kotohime with a smile. At this rate, Cirno would probably make captain by the end of the year. The princess grabbed the faux-Alice's hand and gently moved its arm forward and back, revealing the metal circles on either side of its elbows. "Metal joints," she murmured to herself, then started humming a simple, cheerful ditty while she pondered.

"So… the creepy doll lady was a doll all along?" asked Rumia uncertainly.

"That would be some satisfying symbolism, but I don't think so," replied the princess. She briefly met the face of the hanged doll, noting the wooden expression only reinforced by its wooden texture. Then she drew a bonesaw from her sleeve and got to work. "I'm not sure if we're supposed to conclude that, or if this whole scene is trying to send a message," she said as she wrenched the tool back and forth until the doll's left forearm clattered down the bottom two steps of the staircase. "In the meanwhile, we've finally got something to analyze in the lab!" she said excitedly after scooping up the specimen.

"So is Marisa dead or not?" asked Cirno, folding her arms and pouting.

"All we can conclude from the scene is that there's been some property damage to her home and hat," Kotohime reassured her. "For all we know she and Alice are off on a picnic or something after a tragic pie-baking accident."

"Good, because I don't want her dying before I get my rematch," grouched the fairy.

"But what about the note?" protested Mystia. "And the hanging doll?"

"Hanged," the policewoman corrected patiently. "It's an ongoing investigation, girls. For now, we'd better get back to headquarters and see what we can learn from this bit of evidence." Kotohime stuffed the arm in question down her voluminous sleeve. "Until then, it looks like…"

She withdrew a pair of sleek and shiny sunglasses, opened the shades with a quick flick of her wrist, and purposefully slid them onto her head.

"…these are the wrong prescription," she finished. "Seriously, I can't see a damn thing," she added, slowly panning her head and trying to walk straight. "Did I get an extra pair of yours by mistake, Mysti-YAAAAAA!"

Rumia looked down at where Kotohime had faceplanted. "I think you slipped on Cirno barf," she said cheerfully.

-x-

* * *

><p>-3-<p>

_Gensokyo Police Department Headquarters  
>10:22 am<em>

Gensokyo's police station was as stately as it was sturdy, a stolid symbol of both civic authority and architects' tendency to put as little effort as possible into public buildings. It was a place of ordered chaos, where apprehended criminals were brought in, processed, and eventually released to begin the cycle anew. Just stepping through its wide glass doors was a reminder that the wheels of justice were always turning, crushing evildoers like a monster truck made out of laws and ordinances.

Or maybe that was the wrong analogy, Kotohime decided. Maybe it was like a hive, she thought as she led her squad through the atrium and into the building's offices. Yes, a place swarming with people all bustling about with purpose, each fulfilling a specialized function, be it patrol officer or clerk or repeat offender.

And coordinating this swarm was, appropriately enough, the mistress of all bugkind. Wriggle Nightbug sat in her usual spot behind the main desk, an array of phones and keypads spread under her fingers, her face inhumanly calm and detached from the turmoil around her. Wriggle's boyish looks, penchant for shorts and shirts over dresses, and short teal hair led to some hilarious gender confusion, but she bore it with the same vague disinterest she had for everything else. As an insect-derived youkai, she didn't have some of the hang-ups of more "normal" citizens, even if the only sign of her buggishness was the pair of antennae sprouting from her head.

"Put her in the usual cell until I get in touch with her owner," Wriggle was calmly ordering another policewoman, one escorting a statuesque, handcuffed figure wrapped in nothing but a towel that didn't quite conceal her clump of bushy golden tails.

"Right," the other girl nodded. "First I think I'll get her a robe or something."

"There should be one under the cot," the insect youkai reminded her, before her fellow officer led the fox-woman out, ignoring the prisoner's anxious inquiries about her cat shikigami. Then Wriggle noticed Kotohime and her coterie. "Oh, you're back," she said without a hint of interest.

The princess narrowed her eyes. "Wait, if you're the bug lady directing everything, that would make you some sort of hive queen."

Wriggle didn't even flinch, but merely waited patiently for her boss to explain herself.

"What was that about, the usual?" asked Mystia, flapping a wing at the departing perp.

"The usual," repeated Wriggle. "Public indecency, running down Main Street without a stitch of clothing, like she'd forgotten she wasn't in fox form. Usual crime, usual cell-"

"Usual 'mysterious' disappearance before morning," Mystia finished with a sour look on her face, glowering at the departing nudist kitsune. "Bloody Yakumos."

"But it's better than letting her roam free and scar impressionable young children with her naughty bits," declared Kotohime, mentally resolving to sort out the bug-princess hierarchy later. "Anything else to report, Officer Nightbug?"

The green-haired youkai shrugged slightly. "A few hats on statues, but nothing out of the ordinary."

"We'll see what we can do to fix that," Kotohime reassured her. "In the meantime, keep an antenna out for word regarding Miss Kirisame and or Miss Margatroid."

Wriggle saluted, then started pushing buttons, ignoring the people in front of her. Kotohime nodded to herself and beckoned her other officers to follow as she led them out of the reception area.

"Alright, time for some lab work," she said with a clap of her hands. She marched down the hallways leading into the beating heart of Gensokyo's justice system, or possibly its churning bowels. "Rumia, go rustle up Team Nemesis and send them down, I've got a job for them."

The darkness youkai saluted and took off along a side hallway, while Kotohime led Mystia and Cirno down some stairs. "Those two like to hang around your place for food, right?" she asked, giving the night sparrow a sidelong look

Mystia nodded. "Not as often as when we weren't on the force, but we still try to get together every now and then."

"So, in your expert opinion, have they…" Kotohime trailed off when she noticed the attentive look on Cirno's childish face.

"What?" asked the ice fairy.

"Have they… you know," Kotohime asked Mystia, waggling her eyebrows.

The bird youkai colored slightly. "Oh! You're asking if they've…" she glanced down at her fairy friend.

"_What?"_ demanded Cirno.

"Um, I'm not sure if they've…" Mystia made a quick, embarrassed gesture. "You know. But they do seem to be sitting closer together these days."

"What are you guys talking about?" grumped Cirno from somewhere below them.

"Well if they haven't…" Kotohime let out a few quick whistles, "think they've at least..?" this was followed by a clicking tongue and quick tug on her bangs.

Mystia just stared. "I'm feeling as lost as Cirno," she confessed, still pink-faced.

"_Stop leaving me out!"_

"I'll tell you when you're…" Kotohime trailed off as she stared down at the little fairy, who was mentally still in grade school but physically at least sixty. "Riiight. Anyway, conversation over, we're in the lab now," she declared as she pushed open the double doors into the station's forensics laboratory.

It was _shiny_. So many chrome cabinets and tables, so many expensive-looking instruments. As if all the gleaming surfaces left the truth with no shadows to hide in… hey, that was pretty good. Kotohime hurried over to a nearby desk with a notepad on it to jot down that poetic observation. She caught Mystia giving her a curious look when she was finished, but the youkai was smart enough not to say anything.

"Okay, so…" Kotohime finally noticed who was womanning the laboratory, an intent-looking girl with dark green hair under a lighter-colored cap, wearing a matching dress with an unusual number of pockets and pouches. The overstuffed backpack on the floor next to the lab tech made her identity clear. She saw Kotohime's interest and offered a shy little wave before getting back to her paperwork.

"What?" asked Cirno.

Kotohime scratched her head. "A kappa? We've got a kappa working for us?"

"Well, who were you expecting?" countered Mystia, one pinkish eyebrow arched. "They're the best engineers around, of course we'd hire some as technicians."

Which was overlooking one or two local scientists Kotohime was familiar with, the princess mused to herself. She mentally shrugged, trying to brush aside the sense of disquiet that had been weighing on her since Marisa's house, and resolved to keep her front facing the river-dwelling youkai. "Alright then. Let's-"

The doors behind them slammed open as a woman kicked them apart with casual strength, closely followed by another policewoman. "You wanted somethin', chief?" the first girl gruffly asked around her cigarette.

Kotohime had to take a moment to just appreciate the scene. She hadn't bothered to come up with an official uniform, but both newcomers wore matching outfits, of a sort – long jackets over baggy trousers, though they had a nice yin-yang thing going on. Fujiwara no Mokou's clothes were a crisp white, a brighter shade than her own ankle-length pale grey hair, except where bright red paper charms had been attached to her legs or tied into her hair. Similarly, Kaguya Houraisan's uniform was pitch black, so that her own absurdly long hair matched it like a cape. But while Kaguya wore her clothes buttoned-up and presentable, Mokou had her jacket open to reveal the sarashi she'd worn beneath it, enough to preserve her modesty while making it clear that she was a renegade cop who didn't play by the rules, and who also had a distractingly nice midriff.

Mokou leaned up against a cabinet insolently, hands still in her pockets, cigarette smoke curling around her sunglasses. Kaguya gave her partner a disapproving look and a little disdainful sniff that did absolutely nothing to diminish her natural charm, then saluted Kotohime and stood patiently at attention.

"Deputy-Princess Kaguya, Deputy-Acting-Princess Mokou," the policewoman-princess said with a nod to each woman. "Lookin' sharp. Bet if we slap you two on a poster, recruitment will triple overnight."

"Ah, well," said Kaguya modestly. "I only took your suggestions to heart when I selected my uniform." She offered her superior a quick bow before asking "What was it you required, princess?"

"Your help, of course. It's time for Science!" the police chief said as she circled around behind a table. The kappa lab tech perked up at the word, Kaguya, Cirno and Mystia sidled in closer, while Mokou took another drag on her cigarette and continued to slouch against the furniture.

"Observe," Kotohime continued, making a flourishing motion with her arms. "Nothing up my sleeves," she assured her audience, shaking out her hands as part of her warm-up, and causing the severed wooden forearm to slip out and bounce off the edge of the desk.

Cirno blinked, then scowled at the princess. "You lied to us," she accused.

Kotohime stared down at the carved limb and sighed. "Moving on." She picked the bit of evidence up off the floor and crossly dropped it onto the table. "Exhibit A: one wooden limb recovered from a possible crime scene. I need to figure out who made it. So, how do I do it, ladies?" she asked her subordinates.

"Look for a maker's mark?" deadpanned Mokou, head tilted up towards the ceiling as she emitted disinterest and tobacco smoke.

"Ask some carpenters?" suggested Mystia with a shrug that made her wings flap.

Cirno just stared blankly, her face vacant and waiting.

Kaguya half-shut her deep brown eyes, staring past Kotohime as she thought out loud. "Well, the craftsmanship is above-average, so you can narrow down the list of suspects to the top percentile of artisans. I know little about the varieties of local lumber, but if you had an expert analyze it, he or she might be able to tell you what species the limb is made of, allowing you to search sales records of that specific wood. A forensic scientist could study the aging and weathering of the material to estimate when it was made and what conditions it was kept in-"

"That's-" Kotohime cleared her throat, then glanced down and inspected her nails. "Those are all good points," she admitted. "But what I had in mind was right up your alley, Deputy-Princess."

"Is it?" the Lunarian replied with utmost politeness.

"Yeppers. Metal joints," said Kotohime, tapping the steel hinges of the thing's elbow and wrist. She picked up a tub of water from another table, set it down on the desk they were gathered around, and unceremoniously dropped the wooden arm into it with a splash. Cirno absently prodded at a puddle to turn it into an ice slick.

Kaguya tilted her head slightly. "This will make it more difficult for a forensic expert to-"

"Hup-up-up!" Kotohime interrupted, one finger skyward. "This will also narrow down our list of suspects considerably. So, princess," she continued. "Your superpower is the manipulation of eternity, right?"

A brief but dazzling smile danced across Kaguya's face. "That is essentially correct, yes."

"So," the police chief went on, "what'dya get when you examine this? Get the sense that this is pretty temporary? Soon to rust and rot, eh?"

Kaguya blinked. "Ah, being able to manipulate something is not _necessarily_ the same as being able to-"

"Don't be shy!" urged Kotohime. "Go on, give it a shot, see how soon this will all decay."

The Lunar exile obligingly leaned closer to the soaking wooden limb, her brow furrowed slightly as she concentrated. "'Soon' is of course a relative term," she stated. "But… the wood will rot away in a matter of decades, while the metal will endure for comparatively longer with few ill effects. Though both materials are still fleeting when viewed with-"

Kotohime clapped her hands, a satisfied smile on her face. "Thank you Deputy-Princess, that will be all."

"Will it?"

"Yep yep." Kotohime nodded at the arm. "Metal joints that don't rust for a while, so we're dealing with stainless steel. And who's the largest producer of stainless steel in Gensokyo? The amphibious kappa, of course!" She started heading for the door. "Be right back, investigating Youkai Mountain."

"Hold up," Mokou said, standing upright only to tilt her head, the bow tying her hair flapping like the wings of a red-and-white bat, "where'd this arm even come from, anyway?"

Kotohime shrugged. "Some fake Alice Margatroid doll that was swinging from Marisa's ceiling. Had her dress on and everything."

Mokou's frown deepened. "So why not ask _her_ what-"

"What do you want _us_ to do?" interrupted Cirno as she crossed her arms grumpily, clearly upset over being left behind.

"Patrol," Kotohime ordered, giving her deputies a grave look. "Go out there, be visible. Discourage troublemakers from making trouble. Let people know that even though there's been some explosive remodeling at the Kirisame household, there are still forces of order in this world of chaos."

Kaguya's eyes widened in surprise. "There's been an incident at Miss Kirisame's house?"

"The others can fill you in. Call me if anything else comes up," Kotohime yelled as she slipped out the door.

-x-

* * *

><p>-4-<p>

_The Untrodden Valley, Youkai Mountain  
>11:14 am<em>

"-on official police business, so _bugger off!_" Kotohime shouted, loosing another barrage of stylishly violet danmaku at the pair of wolf tengu hounding – har, har – her flight.

The duo of white-and-black uniformed sentinels split in opposite directions to avoid her aggressive defense, hair and lupine tails streaming as they darted through the skies with grace and speed that made one wonder how they kept their tokin hats on during such aerial stunts… and how the hell canine-derived youkai could fly so well… or how they could possibly be related to the more familiar bird-winged tengu. But the wolf-eared guards didn't press the attack, and instead regrouped well out of range before quickly disappearing into the distance.

Kotohime slowed to a hovering halt, high above the forest canopy, and shook her fist in the direction of Youkai Mountain. "I'll be lodging a complaint with your superiors! I am _well_ out of tengu airspace, and even if I was I'd have a valid reason for being there! As well as diplomatic immunity!" Of course there wasn't an answer, though she was quite confident one particular wolf had heard her. The princess sniffed indignantly and muttered about over-excitable pups as she began her descent.

The lush valley at the mountain's base looked ablaze with vivid reds and oranges and yellows, save where a wide river meandered its way through the boughs of the forest ringing. The princess sighed at the scenic view. She always loved autumn in Gensokyo – wait, was it seriously fall already? But it felt like just yesterday she'd set out on a journey under a late summer sun…

The princess mentally shrugged as she dropped down past the treeline, slowing as she cruised over the shining stream. She watched the armada of leaves drifting with the current for a moment, then focused past them, trying to penetrate the sun's glare and the reflections on the water's surface to find her quarry. That was the problem with dealing with kappa, of course, at least if you weren't a similarly amphibious species. She really ought to have brought a cucumber to try to lure one of the turtle-folk out of hiding.

Kotohime tried to focus on spotting one of the elusive youkai, but found herself distracted by a niggling worry. The tengu and kappa had been neighbors for, like, ever. They knew the limits of each others' territory, and normally a wolf tengu patrol would have no reason to come this far down in the valley. So why were they here?

Even as the princess pondered this, she noticed something in the water beneath her, a shred of blue cloth drifting on the current. Familiar blue cloth.

Kotohime accelerated, following the intermittent bits of tattered dress. Maybe it was just a catastrophic wardrobe malfunction, she tried to assure herself, but something told her she was approaching another crime scene.

Sure enough, she rounded a bend to find a muddy riverbank littered with scraps of clothing and what looked like the contents of a toolbox, the moist earth beneath soaked an almost black color. Worse were the flesh-colored bits, as well the splash of azure hair half-hidden behind a rock. Kotohime slowly hovered her way around the mossy boulder, dreading what she knew she was about to see, but there are some times you just have to deal with a severed head. Despite being unattached to the rest of its body, it still sported a cheery smile, as well as a sporty cap.

"This is turning out to be a really _violent_ day," Kotohime mused to herself as she took in the mess.

A twig snapped.

Kotohime whirled, her jitte out and pointed at the source of the sound within a split-second. "Show yourself!"

"Oh, it's you!" came a relieved voice.

The underbrush hugging the riverbank parted from an unseen force, and then a section of air seemed to shimmer as through a heat haze, or as though sheets of water were running down over something invisible – something that shortly became Nitori Kawashiro, hale and whole, if looking a little rattled. Nitori tended to have a wide-eyed, "deer-in-the-headlights" look on her face until she was certain whoever she was talking with wasn't a threat, but today she looked positively _happy_ to see Kotohime.

"Heya, officer," the kappa said, brushing an errant strand of vivid teal hair away from her similarly-hued eyes. "Uh, I suppose you're wondering about the mess…"

The policewoman stared at her for a moment, then pointed meaningfully at the sodden ground and body parts. "So I take it you've discovered how to cheat death? Some sort of respawn system, perhaps? Or do you have a bank of clones hidden somewhere to beam your mind into?"

"Huh? Ah, no, nothing quite that advanced. That's not me," explained Nitori, her hands held up to fend off Kotohime's accusations. "Er, I mean, obviously not, I'm standing right here instead of spread all over the…" The kappa coughed. "Anyway, I call it a Nitoribot."

"A Nitori-robot," Kotohime repeated flatly, arching an unconvinced eyebrow. She looked closer at one of the flesh-colored bits, then picked it up to examine the chunk. While the skin looked and felt lifelike, there was no blood staining it, and protruding from beneath it were broken pistons and dangling wiring.

That explained the smell of engine oil, at least.

"Pretty lifelike," the princess grudgingly admitted.

"Sure is!" Nitori agreed, beaming, any unease quickly fading now that there were technical matters to discuss. She hooked her thumbs beneath the criss-crossing straps of her dangerously overstuffed backpack, her bosom swelling with pride. "I haven't managed to come up with some artificial hemoglobin yet, but Nitoribots' neural circuitry comes close enough to simulating brainwaves that they have a ninety percent change of fooling even satori, assuming optimal weather conditions."

"I dunno, it seems like a lot of work to make a glorified stunt double..."

"But it's worth it the first time one saves your life," the kappa countered. "So-"

"Just how functional are they?" interrupted Kotohime, her head tilted speculatively.

Nitori blinked. "What do you mean?"

"You know, are they fully functional, or are they," the princess gave her a look, "_fully_ functional?"

The kappa stared for several seconds, then jumped back, wide-eyed, as she went through a full-body blush that clashed weirdly with her sky-blue dress. "_Ehhhh?_" stammered Nitori. "I-I mean, sure, I guess you could – but I never-"

"Body doubles are a good start," Kotohime continued, "but there's some opportunities there. Modifications, attachments, special settings-"

"I didn't – it was just a – okay, maybe _once_-"

"Arm cannons, rocket boots, that sort of thing," finished the princess. "Make it a proper bodyguard, not just body double."

Nitori went very still for a moment, then made a big deal out of smoothing the folds of her skirt. "W-well, obviously if I'd installed something like _that_ the Nitoribot wouldn't have gotten smashed."

"Good point." Kotohime tapped her foot, scowling at the mess. "This is the second not-quite-murder I've uncovered today. Don't suppose you saw it happen?" she asked hopefully.

Nitori crouched down on her haunches beside one piece of the mangled robot, precariously balancing her bulky backpack, and shook her head. "No. I wanted to see how the Nitoribot behaved when left by herself, so I went for a half-hour swim. Came back and she was in pieces."

"It," Kotohime corrected. The kappa gave her a surly look, which the policewoman ignored as she inspected the crime scene for clues. "Well, we can rule out firearms, offensive magic or bladed weapons," the policewoman declared. "No bullet holes, smooth cuts, or scorch marks. This bit of property damage seems to have been done by a blunt object."

"Like a wrench?" Nitori asked.

Kotohime nodded. "Yes, like a…" she frowned at her companion. "Found one, didja?"

"Yep." Nitori gestured down at the oil-stained tool lying not-quite-concealed by a leafy frond. The kappa was careful not to touch it, which Kotohime appreciated. The princess quickly pulled on a pair of gloves so she could handle the object without contaminating the evidence.

"Hmm…" Kotohime gave the wrench a few experimental swings. "Well, you could take a good whack at a robot skull with this." She gave the remains of the Nitoribot another look. "But that in itself wouldn't make quite this much of a mess."

"Someone would have to be pretty strong to get that much chunkage," Nitori agreed.

Kotohime didn't bother to ask how the youkai knew that. You heard things about kappa, things involving hands reaching into body cavities, fell deeds that even Kotohime didn't need to know the details of. "Superhumanly strong," she murmured instead, absently tapping the not-quite-murder weapon against her open palm while she thought. She squinted down at it, reached inside her sleeve to produce what looked like a salt or pepper shaker, then held the wrench by its tooly bits with one hand while the other shook the vial over its grip. "Dustin' for prints," she explained for Nitori's benefit. "Got a magnifying glass or something?"

Nitori wordlessly reached into one of her many, _many _pouches, withdrawing a rectangular doodad. She flicked a switch on its side to extend a squarish glass pane, then handed it over to Kotohime, who murmured her thanks.

The princess peered at the attempted murder weapon, walking into the light of the riverbank to get a better look at what the dust had revealed. She nodded, coming to a decision. "Beans," she announced, lowering the wrench with a determined look on her face.

Nitori's pigtails flopped as she cocked her head. "Pardon?"

"Bean prints on the wrench," Kotohime repeated. "Not fingerprints. _Bean_ prints."

The kappa just stared blankly.

"So either we're dealing with an ambulatory, aggressive legume," the policewoman went on, "or this was the work of a dangerously strong plant-based supernatural entity. And _that _means-" Kotohime deliberately paused, waiting for Nitori to jump in, but instead the youkai engineer continued to stand in silent bafflement. "The Aki Sisters," she finished, a little disappointed.

Nitori stared for a few long seconds, opened her mouth, closed it, and opened it again to say "What."

"Well, Minoriko, anyway," the princess clarified. "If Shizuha had done it we'd be finding leaf prints. But Minoriko's made of all sorts of tasty goodness: sweet potatoes, beans, apples…" Kotohime swiped at her mouth, aware that she was starting to drool. Normally she'd be ordering lunch about now. "But it's hard to imagine her getting involved in something without her older sister."

The kappa was still giving her an incredulous look. "You think the _Aki Sisters_ did this?"

"Positive. It's the only explanation that makes any sort of sense. I'd better-"

Kotohime was cut off by a sound like a mechanical cricket chirruping from her clothing. She wordlessly help up a finger to silence Nitori, then pressed firmly on her badge. "Talk to me."

"Chief?" It sounded like Wriggle, though her voice was a bit scratchy and faint, like she was talking through a metal tube. "We've got a situation."

"Did Cirno lick the flagpole again?"

"Negative," the youkai dispatcher said placidly. "There's a disturbance at the food bank. Shots fired, nobody hurt so far, but it's-"

"The Akis," Kotohime interrupted, as she gave Nitori a grim look.

"Huh? Somebody told you?" Wriggle actually sounded mildly surprised.

"Who's on the scene?" Kotohime asked instead of answering.

"Cirno and Mystia were the ones who called it in, but they're keeping their distance so far. Then Kaguya and Mokou tried to go in, but something went wrong, and I can't raise Mokou." Wriggle hesitated a few heartbeats before adding "From how Mystia tells it, it's a hostage situation now."

"On my way. Kotohime out." The princess slapped her badge with a determined look on her face. "Looks like I'm needed elsewhere," she told Nitori.

"But…" The youkai sat down on the big mossy rock, sweeping off her cap so she could massage her forehead. "Why would Minoriko trash my Nitoribot?"

"I'll be sure to ask her," Kotohime assured the kappa grimly. She leapt into the air, racing away like a bolt of purple justice, trying to shake the feeling that she was forgetting something…

-x-

* * *

><p>-5-<p>

_Gensokyo Food Bank  
>12:26 am<em>

Kotohime landed about a block from the crime scene, not willing to expose herself by flying right towards it, instead closing the distance on foot to take advantage of cover. She used her jitte to push her way through the gawking crowd, poking and whapping the foolish bystanders hoping for some lunchtime entertainment. She really needed to get more girls on the force so they could get up some proper barricades.

Luckily the area in front of the food bank itself was clear of potential collateral damage. There were a few abandoned carts and wagons parked in the street, and hunkered behind one of them was one of Kotohime's officers. Mystia Lorelei was nearly bent over double by the weight of her dusky black riot gear, especially since she had to remove the backplate of her armored jacket to accommodate her wings, leaving her off-balance. Her head snapped up at Kotohime's approach, making her oversized helmet tilt lopsidedly.

"Chief!" the night sparrow sang out, relief plain in her voice.

"Officer Lorelei," Kotohime responded with a curt nod. She crouched down next to the girl, taking a moment to straighten Mystia's headgear. "What's the situation?"

Mystia's dark grey eyes were wide behind the smudged visor. "They've got Mokou!" she chirped. "And guns! Loud, scary guns! Why do they have guns?!"

"Kalashnikovs, I believe," came Kaguya's voice in Kotohime's earpiece, cool and calm. "I can't determine which model, but I suppose it doesn't really matter right now."

"Where you at, princess?" asked the police chief.

"Behind you, on the roof of the inn." Kotohime briefly glanced over her shoulder at the four-story building. There was no sign of Kaguya, but that was rather the point, wasn't it? "I'm in a good position," came the other princess' voice, "and will let you know when I have a clear shot."

"Stay frosty," Kotohime replied. "Chief out." She lowered her finger from the side of her head with a slight smile on her face. Kaguya's marksmanship training would come in handy today, she wagered. It faded when she realized someone was missing. "Where's Cirno?" she demanded.

Mystia winced. "Over-"

"ARE YOU STILL IN THERE?" an electronically amplified voice inquired with window-rattling force.

Kotohime grimaced and followed Mystia's pointing finger. Sure enough, two carts down a small blue figure hovered to peer over the top of her barricade, a megaphone nearly the size of her head gripped in her tiny hands.

"I, uh, thought it might be good to get a dialogue going, since it's a hostage situation," Mystia explained, picking at her long teal talons nervously.

"We're not going anywhere!" a woman's voice yelled from the crisis scene.

Kotohime peeked around the front of the cart. The food bank was a simple two-story building designed much like any other shop on the street, but its windows were dark and shuttered, its door all but closed. Still, Kotohime couldn't miss the splash of vivid orange lurking just behind the threshold, a gleaming metal object cradled in the thin figure's hands.

"You're going to listen to us!" Shizuha Aki screamed out at a cruel and apathetic world. "Respect us! Remember us! Or else!"

"WE COULD REMEMBER YOU BETTER IF YOU CAME OUTSIDE," Cirno suggested with deafening cunning.

"And you don't have to yell into the megaphone, you idiot!"

Kotohime could see Cirno turn red even from yards away. "I'M _NOT_ AN IDIOT! THE ONE WHO SAYS 'IDIOT' IS THE IDIOT!"

"Stop yelling!"

"MAKE ME!"

The gun's barrel drooped a bit as Shizuha sagged in confounded desperation. "Is there anyone else I could talk to?"

"NO!"

"They've been doing that for at least ten minutes," said Mystia wearily. "I'm sorry, but Cirno got to the amplifier first, and then we got separated, and-"

"She's wearing them down, encouraging them to surrender and stuff," Kotohime finished, clapping Mystia's armored shoulder encouragingly before glancing over the rest of her gear. "In the meanwhile, _you_ need to get better equipped. The rest of us are immortal, but you need more protection. Here," she said, rifling through the duffel bags on the dirt road beside them to extract a pair of riot shields. "Stick your wings out for a second," the princess ordered. "Don't want you to take a bullet in a pinion and be grounded the rest of your life."

"If you s-say so," mumbled Mystia as Kotohime slung the rectangular, transparent items sideways onto her wings. She winced. "Those are _really _heavy."

"But sturdy." Kotohime drew back to admire her handiwork. "Nice. Now, stay in cover, I'm going to relieve Cirno." The minute Kotohime took her hands off Mystia's wings, the overburdened youkai toppled over with an indignant squawk. The policewoman didn't look back, instead dashing to her other minion's side with a quick burst of flight.

Cirno jerked her head around in surprise, before her face lit up as she recognized Kotohime. "Oh, hi! I'm negotiationing!" she said proudly.

"I saw!" Kotohime replied, ruffling Cirno's sky blue hair affectionately. "But I think it's my turn."

"This thing is fun," the ice fairy giggled as she handed over the megaphone. There was frost all over the grip, but Kotohime stoically endured it, making a mental note to wear gloves around Cirno now that summer was apparently over.

"Good morning!" she called brightly, noticing how her own voice echoed off the unembellished front of the food bank.

A blonde head poked back into sight just past the open door. Kotohime could just make out a faint "Oh thank goodness" before Shizuha remembered to glare and shouted "What do you want, copper?"

"I was about to ask the same thing!" Kotohime replied without rancor. "Minus the 'copper' part, anyway. Now, you might be new to the whole hostage-taking business, but normally you'd make some demands at this point." She took her finger off the megaphone's trigger to let the idea sink in for a moment. "Unless you're just doing this for attention," she added.

"N-no! This is part of a plan! I'm not… we're not…" The elder Aki sister shook her head, as though trying to dislodge some cobwebs. "I'll be back!" she promised, before disappearing into the shadows of the building's interior.

"I'll be right here!" Kotohime assured her foe. Her cheery smile faded as she lowered the amplifier. This didn't feel right. She knew perps could get stressed out during their illegal activities, and the pressure cooker of a hostage situation could certainly lead to lawbreakers having second thoughts about their current path through life. But it almost felt like Shizuha didn't know what she was doing here in the first place.

"I wonder if she's on the drugs," she murmured to herself.

"Huh?" Cirno tilted her head like a confused puppy.

"That's right, I haven't set up a narc unit yet," the princess realized. "I'll explain later. Oh hey, this looks promising!"

There was movement from the food bank, but the emerging colors were darker, a black dress with a salmon-colored apron over it, worn by another blonde woman of indeterminate age. Like her sister, Minoriko Aki cradled a vintage assault rifle in her arms, and Kotohime couldn't help but think that the harvest goddess could have at least tried to better accessorize her weapon with her outfit. Maybe an orange ribbon or two, or perhaps a sweet potato stuck on a bayonet.

"Is that you out there, princess?" called the younger Aki tiredly, her normally cheery face twisted into something uncharacteristically darker.

"I'm right here, goddess," the policewoman answered. "So what's this all about? Shouldn't you be at a harvest festival or something? Instead of, you know, firing heavy weaponry at law-abiding citizens?"

"We're…" Minoriko lurched a bit, only remaining upright by grabbing the doorframe, letting her weapon hang listlessly in her other hand. It could have been due to Minoriko having two left feet, but Kotohime thought she looked just as disoriented as her sibling. "We're here to get the respect we deserve!" the minor deity shouted, rallying. "For too long we've been marginalized or overlooked! We're _goddesses! _ You should fear us, not invite us to a party once a year and then forget about us!"

"You mean invite _you_," Kotohime corrected helpfully. "Shizuha just does leaves, nobody pays attention to her in the first place."

In the pause that followed, yelling, faint but unmistakably furious, could be heard emanating from deeper in the building.

"So why hit the food bank, anyway?" asked Kotohime, leaning forward to rest an elbow on the abandoned cart she was standing behind, propping her chin up with one hand.

"It's an insult!" the harvest goddess spat back with surprising venom. "Hoarding food like this? So that if there's a bad crop this year the humans can continue to stuff their faces? So that it _doesn't matter_ if I've not been properly appeased? _Blasphemy!_" Even from the other side of the street, Kotohime could see Minoriko shaking with rage. "Humans _need_ me. I will _not_ be replaced by a warehouse!"

"So I take it demand one is getting this place shut down?" asked Kotohime. "Write that down, Cirno," she hissed out of the corner of her mouth.

"Obviously! And then…" The younger Aki sister looked about wildly. "And we're tired of disappearing after three months! Why should humans live in defiance of the seasons, but not goddesses?"

"BECAUSE WINTER IS LETTY TIME, NOT STUPID AKIS TIME!" Cirno shouted, leaning in to take over the megaphone. "GO AWAY SO LETTY CAN COME, OR I'LL FREEZE YOU SOLID AND BREAK YOU IN-"

Kotohime gently pushed Cirno back. "Easy there, champ," she murmured. She cleared her throat before picking up the amplifier again. "So we've got 'shut down the food bank' and 'longer autumns' as your demands, does that sound right?"

Minoriko straightened up a bit. "Yes, that's-"

"But why should we grant them?"

The goddess seemed surprised by the question. "Because we have a hostage?"

"Prove it!" Kotohime challenged. "For all we know you've got a sack of flour and a wig in there! Bring 'er out front so we can get a good look!"

Minoriko glared at her, but disappeared from sight. "Get ready, princess," Kotohime whispered into her radio. Kaguya was too focused to waste words on a response.

Hopefully they could finish this up before lunchtime. Kotohime's stomach gurgled at the thought of the cans and sacks and barrels of food just a few yards away from her, with nothing but two uncharacteristically belligerent goddesses and a pair of the Soviet Union's most notorious export in her way. She could almost smell sweet potatoes from across the street.

Less than a minute later Minoriko returned, while Shizuha prodded a grey-haired woman along with the barrel of her gun. Fujiwara no Mokou, immortal phoenix warrior, police officer, and now part-time hostage, looked more bored than anything, stoically enduring a large bruise covering the side of her head. After one last poke, Shizuha stood at sloppy attention, her rifle's barrel swaying as she looked around.

"Here she is!" Minoriko called, her own gun momentarily slack in her grasp. "And unless our demands are met, we'll-"

"I've got a shot," Kaguya whispered into Kotohime's earpiece.

The police chief nodded. "Fire."

Kotohime didn't know what kind of caliber Kaguya's sniper rifle used. She had no idea where the Lunarian had gotten the thing, whether it was an import from the moon or elsewhere. She wasn't sure if there was any special propellant or ammunition involved.

But one thing was for certain: the gun did terrible things to a person's head. A watermelon being hit with a sledgehammer came to mind.

While the two survivors stood rooted to the ground with shock, approximately 88% of Fujiwara no Mokou swayed slightly before flopping over. The Aki sisters stared down in wide-eyed horror.

"Crap, sorry Cirno," Kotohime said while the little fairy deposited a pile of ice chunks on the street beside her. "Should've told you to look away." She picked up the megaphone again. "Okay!" she called brightly. "Now you have no hostage, but you're still surrounded by the police." All four of them, from one side of the building. It was a pretty complex tactical maneuver, surrounding someone like that. "So," Kotohime continued, "why don't you put down your weapons-"

Shizuha finally let out a hoarse scream and bolted, fleeing deeper into the building. Minoriko backed away, still staring wide-eyed at the mess, before abruptly whirling and following her sister.

"Or not," Kotohime finished lamely. Well, it had been worth a shot. Which reminded her. "Good shooting, princess," she said into her collar.

"I do my best," Kaguya said with unconcealed satisfaction. She was usually in good cheer if Mokou had died recently, more so if she had been directly or indirectly responsible. It was just one of the quirks of their relationship, Kotohime supposed.

"Now stand by to provide further support," ordered the police chief, "we're going in."

"We are?" Mystia asked. The police chief blinked in surprise – somehow the dust-covered sparrow girl had gotten upright and staggered over to join them.

"We are." Kotohime drew her sidearm, slamming a fresh clip into it purely out of habit. "Lock 'n load, peeps."

"Uh…" Officer Lorelei was staring at Kotohime's pistol like she'd never seen it before. "Where did you get a gun?"

The princess frowned. "I'm a _police officer_," she explained.

"Yeah, but…" The night sparrow fidgeted and gave up. "So were _we_ supposed to have guns?"

"Do I get a gun?" asked Cirno, evidently recovered from her sickness.

"Because I don't remember any firearms training when I joined," Mystia continued.

The problem, Kotohime reflected, was that until she finished that cloning tank, she'd never get a police force as competent as its leader. She'd just have to make do with what was available.

"Mystia," she snapped, focusing her authority to forestall any further argument, "stay close behind me and sing if they get the first shot." The night sparrow paled but nodded. "Cirno, ice anything that looks unfriendly, we can thaw them later if need be." The little fairy threw what she thought was a salute. "Rumia…" Kotohime trailed off and looked around. "Okay, whose turn was it to keep an eye on her?"

"She's still at the station, chief," came Wriggle's voice in her ear. "When you ran off there weren't enough for the normal paired patrols, so I had her helping up front."

"Oh." Kotohime thought for a moment, then added "Any casualties?"

"Dr. Yagokoro thinks she can save the man's leg," the insect youkai explained. "And he's too scared to press charges."

The police chief gave her subordinates a stern look. "And this is why it's important to remember to feed the Rumia," she reminded them. She stoically ignored her empty stomach as another thought occurred to her. "Hey Wriggle, can you get the blueprints for this food bank?"

"Of course, chief." There was a few seconds of tapping keys coming over the radio, before the dispatcher declared "I've got them on-screen right now."

"So does this place have any side entrances or backdoors?" the policewoman went on.

"Checking… doesn't look like it, chief," buzzed Wriggle in her ear.

"That makes things easier. But remind me to fine the owners for safety violations afterward, they should have at least included a fire exit." Kotohime looked at the two other members of her squadette. "Okay girls, let's show these goddesses what we're made of." She tensed to lead the charge out of cover, then remembered something. "Oh, and make sure not to slip in Mokou on the way in."

Mystia watched another rain of ice chunks tumble from Cirno's mouth, then gave Kotohime a disapproving look.

"Screw it, catch up when you can," Kotohime sighed, before bounding up and over the parked cart, her robes flapping heroically. She landed in an action roll and bounced out of it in time to end up with her back against the wall to the side of the food bank's door. The princess held the pose for several heartbeats, then spun and rolled through the portal, coming out of the maneuver on one knee in the food bank's shadowy lobby, her pistol jerking around as she searched for a target.

Nothing. Nothing to blast at, no audience to appreciate her awesome entrance.

Well, other than… Kotohime tapped her earpiece. "See anything, princess?"

"Not now, no. You're in my way, sir," the sniper replied a shade reproachfully.

"That's 'ma'am,' or 'princess,' or 'chief,' and I meant through the _windows_," said the policewoman tersely.

"Oh, sorry! Ah…" Kotohime could almost feel Kaguya's scoped gaze sweeping the outside of the structure. "Sorry again. Most are shuttered, it's dark inside, and I can't see any movement. If it's alright, I'd like to come see to my partner."

"Consider it an order. I'm moving deeper into the building." Kotohime somersaulted forward again for good measure, avoiding entanglement in her own long robes thanks to years of training. There were so many places to hide, she realized as she cautiously pulled a flashlight from her sleeve to illuminate the unlit building. Storage rooms, offices, piles of canned goods-

"Chief?" Mystia had struggled her way out of her armor and was gingerly sticking her head through the food bank's entrance, Cirno hovering behind her shoulders. Kotohime made a quick gesture for them to stack up behind her.

"Eyes and ears open," she hissed, switching her flashlight in a reverse grip and using it to steady the butt of her pistol.

Cirno smiled and nodded, while Mystia gulped loudly.

The police chief led her team down a hallway, hugging one wall, methodically checking each adjacent room for any sign of the rogue Aki sisters, expecting a hail of gunfire at any moment. But there was nothing but the gentle sound of hundreds of pounds of long-lasting foodstuffs waiting to be eaten, dried fruit and salted meat and why couldn't this all have happened _after_ lunch?

"Is it getting colder?" murmured Mystia as they turned a corner.

Kotohime felt it almost immediately, like she'd crossed twenty degrees of latitude in one step.

"I can't feel anything," commented Cirno.

"Or is it longitude?" Kotohime mused. "Stay alert, guys. These two aren't known for cryomancy, so we might have a wild card on our hands."

She froze as her foot crunched on something. Looking down, Kotohime saw a layer of frost covering the floorboards, tendrils of mist curling up from it as warmer air from outside seeped in.

Mystia's wings shuddered from the cold, or perhaps nervousness. "Something's not right here."

Cirno's smile practically lit up the hall. "Feels good to me."

The next room Kotohime stuck her head into contained the Akis. Or rather, what was left of them.

Two discarded assault rifles lay on the floor, almost hidden by a layer of rime. Shizuha's clothes were in a rumpled pile, brilliant red and orange leaves spilling out from the sleeves to coat the frosty floor like a bloodstain. Minoriko had met a similar fate, it seemed, though her remains resembled an exploded cornucopia, with assorted treats and vegetables lying in a rough pile around her own dress. And standing over them was a tall, matronly woman with lavender eyes and hair under a white cap, wearing a dress as blue as a clear winter sky-

Cirno squealed with delight and flung herself into Letty Whiterock's arms, making the woman lurch from the impact before Letty burst into warm laughter, smiling like she'd been greeted by a favored niece.

"Oh," was all Mystia said as she took in the scene. She took a step backward to prop herself against the wall, rubbing her temple with one hand as she tried to make sense of it all.

Kotohime lowered her pistol – but only a bit. "Miss Whiterock," she said neutrally, nodding at the yuki-onna. "What brings you to our crime scene?"

Letty gave Cirno one last maternal smooch on the forehead and set the fairy down, smoothing out her dress afterward, her nearly transparent cape more like a curtain of wind-blown snow than a piece of fabric. "Why, winter of course," she stated, as though surprised that the policewoman couldn't figure it out on her own.

Kotohime frowned, tilting her head as she looked up at the ceiling. "I dunno, I thought it was summer until I saw all the leaves and the Akis."

"But now winter is come," Letty replied evenly.

"If you say so," said Kotohime slowly.

"Did you hear me telling the stupid Akis to go away so you could get here?" Cirno eagerly asked her fellow creature of cold. Then she seemed to remember what was on the floor nearby and added "Oh, and did you see what happened to them?"

"I killed them," the herald of winter said matter-of-factly. The three policewomen jerked in surprise. "Well, perhaps that is the wrong word to use," Letty corrected herself. "In any case, they are gone, and will not return."

"Uh," Mystia nervously began, "you mean like you normally, uh, 'kill' them, right? Like they're autumn goddesses, so you show up and kick them out until next fall?"

But Letty shook her head in disagreement. "No. There will be no more autumns. No spring will follow this winter. This is the end." She gave Cirno a faint but reassuring smile. "I am required elsewhere, but we shall be together one last time before then, little one," she promised.

And then a sudden wind gusted through the room, spraying snow and ice crystals so that Mystia and Kotohime had to shield their eyes. When the whiteout was over, Letty was gone.

"Nice exit," Kotohime grudgingly admitted.

"I'm gonna see Letty again!" declared a cheerful Cirno. The ice fairy's good mood faded as she reconsidered. "Wait, what was she saying about one last time? I don't want that, I want to see her lots of times!"

Mystia's whole body spasmed as she tried to dislodge ice from her feathers. "'This is the end?' Is she serious?"

As her subordinates turned to stare expectantly at her, Kotohime chewed on a length of her red hair, deep in thought. "Guess the hostage situation is resolved," she said finally. "A no-score win. Not as satisfactory as it could have been, but beggars, choosers." She looked down at the floor, then scooped up one of the rifles the goddesses had been holding – or rather, tried to. The guns were coated in a hoary layer of ice, the metal cold enough to cause blisters. Kotohime furiously tried to rub some life back into her fingers. "Cirno, you can't get frostbite, so you work on confiscating the weapons."

"Okay!" The childish fairy dropped to her knees and started trying to get a grip on the rifles.

"Just try not to pull the-"

The brief burst of automatic fire made Mystia dive for cover and left a cluster of smoking holes in the wooden wall of the food bank. Cirno hopped to her feet, wincing in embarrassment.

"The triggers, yeah, don't do that." Kotohime ducked down to quickly scoop something else off the floor and marched out the door, Mystia hauling herself upright and hurrying to follow.

"What's that?" the night sparrow asked.

"Sweet potato."

"You… what?" The squeamishness was audible in Mystia's voice. "Did you get that from Min-"

"It's only cannibalism if you're preying on your own species," Kotohime retorted. "Otherwise it's not letting food go to waste." She scowled down at the half-frozen spud. "And I haven't had lunch yet."

Team Nemesis was guarding the food bank's entrance. Or more accurately, squabbling in front of it.

"That was my favorite jacket," grumped Mokou. She was looking hale and whole, if surly, squatting on the porch and frowning down at the mess left behind from her hostage situation, her hands brushing against her blood-soaked collar as she tried to fix her hair.

"It's your fault for getting captured," teased Kaguya as she leaned over her partner, her dark brown eyes sparkling with amusement. "Honestly, a warrior of your caliber being incapacitated by two minor, _minor_ deities? I'm surprised you didn't die of embarrassment."

"Before you blew my head off, you mean."

"We've been over this, it's standard procedure for hostage situations involving regenerative immortals. Remove the hostage and you remove the hostage-takers' bargaining position."

Mokou finished tying her bow and scowled up at Kaguya. "When we get done, I'm going to take this out on your hide."

Kaguya erupted in a peal of melodious laughter. "Promises, promises."

"Glad to see you're not letting the case get you down, princess," Kotohime commented, having watched her fill of the two's spat.

The Lunarian smoothly turned to throw a salute, still smiling. "Excitement is what makes a life worth living," she replied.

"Well said. Looking better, Mokou," added Kotohime, nodding at the sitting woman. "Catch," she commanded, tossing the sweet potato.

The phoenix-themed immortal caught the morsel without looking at it, then had to do a double-take when she saw what was in her hand. "Take it the Akis are dead?"

"Letty'd," Kotohime confirmed. "Now make with the flames."

Mokou shrugged one shoulder and abruptly her hand was engulfed in fire, the savory scent of cooking sweet potato filling the air. "So what now?" she asked.

"First you turn off the heat and gimme my lunch back." Kotohime easily caught the steaming spud, idly juggling the hot potato from hand to hand until it cooled a bit. "Then I go ask where two goddesses got illegal firearms from the outside world."

"But… I still don't understand," Mystia complained, trudging through the doorway and sinking to a seat next to Mokou. She looked up at Kotohime, her grey eyes lost and bewildered. "What about Marisa and Alice? And you said Nitori was almost murdered? Where do the Akis fit in with all of this?"

Kotohime squeezed Mystia's shoulder gently. "We keep asking questions, kiddo. We remember our training, we keep our heads-"

Mokou snorted, while Kaguya's grin managed to get even wider.

"And above all else," Kotohime continued, "we-"

There was another deafening rattle from inside the building.

"-confiscate the guns from Cirno before she kills us all," Kotohime finished without missing a beat. Kaguya wordlessly hurried into the food bank. "And eventually we put the pieces together and figure out whose ass to kick. Just like solving an Incident. Except with paperwork." She stepped off the porch and into the street. "Wrap things up here, I've got some questions to ask." And with that she surged into the air, headed away from the city, towards the magical forests ringing it.

-x-

* * *

><p>-6-<p>

_Kourindou  
>13:38<em>

Kotohime enjoyed her visits to Kourindou, whether on a normal shopping trip or while investigating a potential kidnapping and attempted murder. The little specialist store was tucked away in the suburbs, where houses had proper lawns and trees lined the roads, a compromise between the urban offerings of the village proper and the more wild youkai lands surrounding it, much like how Kourindou's half-human owner bridged those two worlds. Said owner was a reliable source of unreliable information, but occasionally he could come up with something useful… sometimes in ways you wouldn't expect from a mild-mannered shopkeeper.

The police chief pushed the door open with a cheery electronic _ding-dong!_ and Rinnosuke Morichika looked up from his seat behind the glass counter, the dripping noodles dangling from his mouth swaying as turned towards his customer. "Mmmf-" he quickly slurped up the mouthful and gulped it down. "Ah, hello there, princess!" He dabbed at his face with a napkin, smiling sagaciously at Kotohime, at least until he noticed the sauce splattered on his glasses.

"Mr. Morichika," replied Kotohime with a curt nod.

He paused in the act of wiping off his spectacles. "Uh oh. I'm in trouble, aren't I?"

"Depends where the investigation heads," the princess said coolly. "The more cooperative you are, the better it will be for you."

Rinnosuke sighed and donned his glasses again, absently running a hand through his unruly silver hair. "I'm always eager to help the police, of course. What can I do for you?"

Kotohime let her gaze drift over the cramped aisles and shelves lining the store's walls, all covered with… well, detritus was a good word for it. Kourindou didn't stock a normal inventory, after all. Here on the fringes of Gensokyo, items from the outside world occasionally materialized, waiting for an enterprising half-youkai to collect them, tidy them up, and put them up for resale. Sort of like fencing, though pseudonatural forces were at work rather than outright theft, and Rinnosuke was usually more interested in holding onto his finds than selling them. _Probably_ legal, then, if in a bit of a grey area when it came to tax codes.

The princess stalked over to Rinnosuke's counter and leaned against it, looking the halfblood right at his golden eyes from uncomfortably close range. "Make any sales lately?"

"Mmm." Rinnosuke scratched his clean-shaven jaw as he thought, trying and failing to disguise how he was subtly scooting his chair back. "There was a coloring book in some language I don't know, Miss Kamishirasawa picked that up a few days ago. Cracked crystal ball, Miss Izayoi from the Mansion bought that, she didn't say why. A pair of strange trousers – you wouldn't believe how wide the legs were! A shiny silvery color, and I never figured out what they were made from, either-"

"And you have records of all these transactions?"

Rinnosuke nodded smartly, quickly retrieving a battered little book from the satchel he habitually wore with his blue-and-black outfit. "Of course. Though I guess if I needed an alibi, I could always fake them, right?" he joked, laughing lightly. It faded when he saw the cold stare Kotohime was giving him.

"Put some thought into this?" she accused.

He held up his hands in a placating gesture. "No, just-"

"Do you stock any weapons?" Kotohime interrupted.

"-trying to, what? Oh, uh, not really. Just a few curios. I keep them off the general shelves," Rinnosuke explained, tapping the glass countertop. Kotohime glanced down and finally inspected the case she'd been leaning against. There was a weird knife or two, something that looked like it might unfold into a knife, and the type of spike-studded heavy club an oni might use if she didn't want to get her hands dirty.

"Not a bad start for an arsenal," Kotohime commented. "Branching out into arms trading?"

The half-youkai bristled, his glasses flashing. "Certainly not!"

"No assault rifles?" the princess pressed.

"No!"

"No bolt-actions?"

"None whatsoever!"

"Shotguns?"

"You're just going to keep on going, aren't you?" sighed the shopkeeper.

"Flintlocks?"

Rinnosuke pointed over his shoulder at a handsome wooden case on a high shelf. "One, actually. It's an antique dating back to the Dutch-"

"Phased plasma rifles in the 40-watt range?"

"This is taking up my lunch break, so I hope you're getting to a point," said Rinnosuke sourly.

"Oh quit complaining, all _I_ had for lunch was a chunk of Minoriko Aki," Kotohime griped.

The half-youkai stared blankly, his mouth half-open and his eyebrows cocked.

"Someone supplied the Aki sisters with heavy weaponry," the princess continued, folding her arms and leaning against the short stretch of wall between the counter and the building's entrance. "Shooty guns from the outside world. _Real _shooty. I'm trying to figure out who did it, how, and why. Sounds like you aren't involved, but I'm still not any closer to finding who is."

Rinnosuke stared at her for a moment. "Someone's been smuggling lethal items through the Border?" he repeated slowly.

"Yeppers. And obviously they've managed to elude the two females most concerned with keeping the Border secure." She sighed theatrically and stretched her arms over her head. "Well, I was just checking to see if you had any ideas. I hope I can get this sorted, but me and the girls are overworked just dealing with the usual stuff. It's a shame there's no one else who could look into this, like some heroic beefcake vigilante with an interest in things getting through the Boundary."

"Yes, that would be fortunate," said Rinnosuke, poker-faced. "I'm sorry I can't be of more help, princess, but I've told you all I know."

"Yeah. Guess I'll run along then," Kotohime said, tossing her ponytail back over her shoulder as she made for the door.

"That would be best. I think I'll close early today," said the shopkeeper. He leaned his head forward slightly so his face was cast in shadow, but his glasses flashed dangerously. "If I learn anything that could help, I'll be sure to let you know, princess."

Kotohime slipped out with another _ding-dong!_, walked unconcernedly until she reached the treeline, then ducked out of sight, peering back between the bushes. She saw the lit windows of Kourindou wink out, and could just see Rinnosuke moving about behind the doors. He disappeared, there was a moment of stillness and quiet… and then a blur streaked out from behind the building into the shadowy forest around it.

The police chief broke into a wide smile and jumped into the sky with a light heart. She hadn't gained any vital new information, but at least she'd gotten one of her assets into play. An asset with a particularly fine asset of his own, she thought as her smile turned salacious.

-x-

* * *

><p>-7-<p>

_Gensokyo Police Department Headquarters  
>14:06<em>

"Something wrong?" asked Mystia.

Kotohime pounded her sternum with her knuckles and belched, making a sour face. "I think Minoriko's repeating on me. Please continue."

"Uh, right." The night sparrow adjusted her glasses and shuffled the papers she was holding. "There are no reports of any injuries from the Akis' rampage, just claims of property damage. Minor interior damage to the food bank, a shot-up wagon or two, and so forth."

"Sucks to be them," the princess shrugged. "Probably nothing in their insurance plans about harvest goddesses going bonkers with automatic weapons."

"Yeah, probably not." Mystia cleared her throat… melodically, Kotohime noted. The girl probably sneezed song lyrics. "Cirno and Kaguya got the guns down to the lab for… testing?"

"I expect they'll science the hell out of them before the day's over," Kotohime agreed. "Check for fingerprints, measure ballistics, that sort of thing. Forensical stuff."

"I guess," the bird youkai said uncertainly. In the pause that followed, the faint clatter of semiautomatic weaponry and an excited whooping could be heard echoing up from the basements. "And that's about all that's happened since you ran off."

Kotohime grunted noncommittally and looked around, hoping she'd had the foresight to stock some snacks within reach of her desk, but there weren't any dumplings hidden under the heap of paperwork. Sighing, she held up a hand to settle for an appetizer. "_In mani ylem_," she intoned.

There was a moment of silence, as Mystia stared at her in blank bewilderment. "Pardon?"

"Nothing," said Kotohime quietly, staring at her empty palm.

"So, uh, anyway…" Mystia's wings twitched nervously. "Did you learn anything new while you were away doing whatever it was you were doing?"

"My informant didn't have any leads to offer," explained Kotohime, shifting in her seat and trying to refocus on the case, "but the lack of information is in itself telling." The police chief hunched over her desk, resting her elbows on the table and entwining her fingers to hide the lower half of her face. "The weapons obviously came from outside the Boundary, but the odds that they would spontaneously appear to be used like this are simply staggering."

Mystia stood patiently at attention for a long moment, awaiting further clarification that never came. "So, uh, how did they get in then?"

"The better question is who _let_ them in," Kotohime corrected ominously. "There are two people in Gensokyo able to mess around with the Boundary, and neither of them have complained about arms smuggling. Which means…"

"They might be involved," Mystia finished, paling.

"Precisely. So." Kotohime smirked behind her interlaced fingers. "Hakurei or Yakumo, pick your poison."

The night sparrow gulped. "Oh boy… uh, Reimu, I guess."

"Can't blame you," the princess said wryly. "You might want to take some backup along when you hit the shrine. Ask questions, but more importantly keep your eyes and ears open. See if anything looks suspicious or out of place. And," Kotohime went on, jabbing Mystia's stomach, "listen to your policewoman's instincts. If anything feels iffy, pay attention to it. You hear me?"

"Y-yes, chief," Mystia nodded. She looked scared, but determined. It was a good look on her, Kotohime noted.

"Dismissed."

The night sparrow saluted smartly and strode out of Kotohime's office, yelling for Rumia as she went. Gensokyo's police chief smiled to herself.

She'd hoped that Lorelei would choose to go after Reimu. This left Kotohime with the odious task of seeking out Yukari Yakumo, who, as a youkai of boundaries, could be pretty much wherever she wanted to be more or less instantaneously. She _had_ a house somewhere, but no outsider had ever found it – or at least found it and returned to tell the tale.

So since Yukari could be anywhere, you could be said to be looking for her anywhere as well. Like, just to choose a place at random, in a bar serving greasy fried food and on-tap booze.

The morning's death and destruction notwithstanding, the afternoon was looking up.

-x-

* * *

><p>-8-<p>

_The Princess' Crown  
><em>14:35

The beautifully-crafted sign swaying in the breeze over the tavern's entrance proudly announced to the world that this was _The Princess' Crown_, the favored dining establishment of Gensokyo's head of state. Kotohime considered it more valuable than any conventional royal headgear, though of course the metaphor fell apart if you tried to picture her wearing the place.

Whatever, the food was good and the beer was cheap. She slipped through the front door into the warm and smoky interior, earning a chorus of delighted shouts and cheers as everyone in the bar raised a mug to toast her entrance.

"Princess, always a pleasure!" gushed the bartender, his cheeks flushed with merriment and his kindly eyes twinkling.

"The pleasure's mine, Mr. Mizushima," Kotohime replied with a wide grin. One of Kotohime's oldest allies and dearest friends, Mizushima always had time to pour a glass for Gensokyo's princess and share any relevant rumors with Gensokyo's chief of police. Everyone in town knew and liked him, including the police force, making Kotohime wonder where he'd picked up that unfortunate nickname of his. His close-cropped hair and neat little mustache gave the impression of an uptight businessman, but he had the outgoing personality to become Gensokyo's most popular distributor of hangovers. He was already grabbing a bottle of Kotohime's favorite brew before she had even taken her place on a barstool.

The sweating glass slid smoothly down the lacquered wooden bartop into the princess's waiting hand, skillfully sent so it didn't spill a single drop. She took a quick pull and let the liquor sit in her mouth for a moment to soak in the flavor before swallowing. "As always, good stuff."

"Only the best for you, your highness," the man said with a blush. Then he heaved a great sigh. "I'll miss this," he admitted. "The people, the work."

A memory kicked the inside of Kotohime's skull. "Oh, that's right," she said, smiling thinly while glancing up at the coils of tobacco smoke gathering near the ceiling. "You're retiring?"

Mizushima nodded. "Three days from now. Moving out of the city, buying a farm, finally settling down with someone. Not sure how I'll adjust, but," he blushed and looked down bashfully, "you know how it is."

"Well, not me personally, but I've read a thing or two about matrimony." Kotohime took a quick gulp of her beer. "Have you picked a date for the wedding?"

"Depends on how soon we can get the farm tidied up," the barkeep said. "But it won't be long. You're invited, of course," he added quickly.

"And how's the future Mrs. Mizushima?" Kotohime asked.

"Yumi's, well, looking forward to it." The man tugged nervously at the sleeves of his red tunic. "I just hope we get it done before the baby comes."

"Anybody giving you any trouble for that?"

"Oh, no!" the man said, shaking his head vehemently. "Our families are very modern. Besides, you gave that last guy a pretty savage beating, remember?"

"I give out lots of beatings, so don't think you're getting preferential treatment," Kotohime warned him with a sternly wagging finger. She took the edge off the gesture with a crooked grin. "Sounds like you've got a great life to look forward to, man."

Mizushima looked down again. "I guess," he said modestly. "Oh, finally got a tengu to take some pictures for the invitations," he remembered, reaching into a pocket to withdraw a glossy colored photograph to hand to his best customer.

Kotohime whistled approvingly. "_Nice_. Her name's Yumi, but it should be Yummy, am I right fellas?" she asked the other patrons around her, to a chorus of cheers and catcalls that made Mizushima turn beet-red. "Can't blame you for not waiting until-"

Someone tapped on her shoulder.

Kotohime casually turned to look, but froze when all she found was a disembodied, gloved hand hovering in the air behind her. The background conversations in the tavern continued, the bartender happily exchanging banter with a man two stools down from the princess, as though nobody had noticed a stray arm hovering in the air.

"Do you have a minute?" a woman's voice whispered in her ear from no obvious source.

"Sure," Kotohime said tersely, her face an emotionless mask. The floating forearm beckoned towards an empty two-person booth along one of the walls. Without looking back at Mizushima, the princess wordlessly abandoned both her seat and beverage to slip into the indicated booth.

The arm disappeared, immediately replaced by a shifting in the texture of the air, as the world seemed to come apart at a seam hovering over the opposite side of the table. For a moment Kotohime saw nothing but a window into a dimension of purplish haze, studded with vague impressions of otherworldly eyeballs staring unblinkingly at her, but then a woman slipped out, swiveling to take a sidesaddle seat on the rift in space-time.

She looked… well, in-between. Her features were mostly Japanese, but with a hint of the exotic to them, emphasized by her golden hair, worn today in an elaborately-braided bun. She seemed ready for a royal reception, clad in an elegant dark gown that glittered like a midnight sky and long white gloves that sparkled like diamonds. Without her usual mob cap and with her hair styled the way it was, she almost looked like a different person, but there was something unmistakable about Yukari Yakumo's smile and the way it was reflected in her amber eyes – quietly beautiful yet disarmingly otherworldly, calmly confident but also flighty, friendly yet aloof, mysterious but playful.

Kotohime's eyes narrowed at the sight of the intruder, but she rose briefly and offered a polite bow. "Lady Yakumo. How convenient. I was hoping to ask you some questions."

Yukari blinked in surprise. "Were you now? Well, that _is_ convenient," she said with a smile, her voice calm and agreeable. "I intended to provide you with some answers."

"How convenient and wonderful and pleasant," Kotohime said flatly. She reached down a sleeve to withdraw a slender notebook and snapped it open. "Where were you this morning around ten o'clock?"

"That largely depends on where the clock is, whether the viewer has read it correctly, and what you think happens when you dream," the Youkai of Boundaries said placidly. She saw Kotohime's expression and gave the other woman a little grin. "I promised _some_ answers, not straight answers, or even necessarily the truth."

The policewoman stared at her visitor for a moment, wrote a choice expletive in her notebook, and moved on. "Are you aware of any unauthorized weapon trafficking across the Hakurei Boundary?" she asked.

Yukari sighed. "No, I am unaware of any unauthorized weapon trafficking across the Boundary." She gave Kotohime a vaguely disappointed look.

"Are _you_ authorizing any weapons traf-"

"Much better," Yukari said. "But no, I'm not causing any trouble. Well," she reconsidered, looking speculatively up at the ceiling, "not for you, anyway."

Kotohime made a note of it, mentally congratulating herself for her insight and patience. Something about Yukari just made her want to start hitting things, probably the aura of "I know something you don't"-ness that the woman radiated like a small, reality-warping sun.

Yukari shifted in her mid-air perch, turning away from Kotohime before leaning back until she was looking at the princess while upside-down, gloved hands folded neatly over her belly. The position did interesting things to her bosom, Kotohime couldn't help but notice. "Has the conversation proved enlightening so far?" the youkai woman asked.

"More than I expected," Kotohime admitted.

"It is just," the gap youkai continued, "that I fear you are not asking the right questions. I don't think you understand the current situation."

The police chief scowled. "I have everything under control," she insisted. "I know what's at stake, and I am confident that I shall soon apprehend the culprit."

"Are you now?" asked Yukari, a faint smile tugging at her still-inverted lips. "Putting the clues together? Piecing together the puzzle?"

"I've got the corners and edges done. The rest should be cake."

"Mmm-hmm," murmured Yukari noncommittally. She sat up and turned to give Kotohime a sidelong look over her shoulder. "I _could_ just give you all the answers now. But-"

"-what would be the fun in that?" Kotohime finished with a grim little smile. She gave the Youkai of Boundaries a curt nod. "I appreciate your concern, but I'm no rookie when it comes to this sort of thing."

Yukari studied her for a moment before dipping her head slightly in acknowledgment. "Very well, I shan't trouble you any more." She pushed herself away until only her head was poking out of the gap in reality. "I've got places to be, and I should get going before I'm noticed, anyway," she added, glancing skyward. "Good luck with your, ahem, 'investigation.'" Then Yukari ducked down to disappear entirely, as the gap all but silently sealed itself behind her.

Kotohime merely grunted in response, scowling at her notepad. Dismissive attitude and vague answers notwithstanding, Yukari had at least confirmed Kotohime's suspicions… unless the whole interview had been part of the dastardly scheme, but she doubted that. No need to make things too complicated with plots within plots. She sighed and pushed herself to her feet, stowing her notepad and heading back to the bar. "Hey Mizushima, got another beer?" she called.

The cheerful barkeep opened his mouth to respond-

And with a sudden roar of collapsing wood and snapping timber, the roof caved in on him.

Kotohime's superhuman reflexes had sent her diving to cover almost before her ears had picked up the descending wail of a falling object, and she quickly darted out from under the table that had shielded her from the hail of splinters and debris. Furiously blinking from the dust cloud now filling the tavern, she stepped forward into the unnatural stillness following the disaster, an eerie silence broken only by low groaning as the restaurant's other patrons dazedly staggered to their feet.

Her foot brushed something fleshy, and she looked down. An arm protruded from under a dislodged rafter, an arm that had served her a drink mere moments ago. Kotohime knelt next to the limp limb and felt for a pulse, shifted the rubble aside enough to confirm her diagnosis, and then slowly rose to her feet, her face stony. She reached down a sleeve and withdrew two coins to drop into Mizushima's open palm.

"Smooth voyage," she murmured. Then she turned to take in the disaster's epicenter.

A rough pile of shattered ceiling lay where the bar used to be, covered by a lingering dust cloud turned to a luminescent fog by the sunbeams coming in from the hole above. There was a shape in the vague brightness, a shadowy figure standing on a stage of broken dreams.

Then with a _snap-hiss_ a blade of blazing scarlet flared into existence, pointed at the floor as the figure held it in a loose grip. The bloody highlights revealed a deep blue dress, a pinkish shirt, hair the color of a spring sky, and a face twisted in cruel amusement under a black hat.

"Did you like my entrance?" the girl asked brightly. With her free hand she reached up and plucked a succulent-looking peach from the band of her bonnet, then bit into it with insouciant relish.

Kotohime levelly met her gaze. "Tenshi Hinanawi, heaven's resident hellraiser." She took a slow breath, tasting the mixture of wood dust and spilled beer and blood in the air. "Manslaughter. Destruction of property. Reckless endangerment. Breaking and entering." A still-smiling Tenshi tossed away her peach pit. "Littering."

The rogue Celestial laughed. "My goodness, and I only just arrived! I take it you're going to try and arrest me?" she asked, wiping fruit juice off her lips with the back of her free hand.

"It'd be best if you come along quietly."

Tenshi's smile grew wider. "But what if I feel like resisting arrest? Will you resort to force?" She shivered, her cheeks flushed. "Oh, will we see some police brutality?" she went on eagerly. "I'd _quite_ like that."

Kotohime, her face a placid mask, simply extended a hand. Her jitte jumped off her belt and into her waiting palm, then ignited with a blaze of purple energy. She shifted into a fighting stance and brought her humming truncheon into a proper guard, both her hands wrapped around its grip and the tip pointed up and away from her body. She could hear the bar's other patrons scampering out the door, but kept her gaze locked on her opponent.

Tenshi giggled and hopped off the pile of rubble, her sword of cherry-red flame blurring as she pointed it at Kotohime. "Now, I've come a long way for some entertainment" she said, her eyes almost glowing with anticipation. "So don't disappoint me!"

And with that she leapt to the attack, a reckless lunge that brought her blade through a wide overhead chop at the policewoman, gouging a line in the ceiling above her.

Kotohime didn't bother parrying, but spun to the side, her sandals scattering glass shards and splinters. The Celestial recovered with surprising quickness and attempted a backhand chop that would have bisected the princess at the waist, but Kotohime retreated again, the flame-tongued sword just missing her.

It wasn't that Tenshi was a particularly dangerous duelist, Kotohime reflected in the adrenaline-lengthened moments between blows. She had no combat style, no real training. But what the troublesome Celestial _did_ have was a beamsword that could crack the Earth's surface. Finesse took a backseat when you had that much power in your hands.

Tenshi laughed as she swung her searing blade in an almost lazy horizontal chop that tore through a line of booths and tables like they were tissue paper, forcing Kotohime to duck and roll.

"What's the matter, officer?" the Celestial giggled. "Scared, or just holding back?" Her mocking smile faded. "What, you don't take me seriously? Think I'm just _playing _with you?"

Kotohime came out of her roll and warily stayed out of reach, lit by the embers of the ruined and smoldering furniture, her face still clear of emotion as she regarded her foe. "If you want to be taken seriously, maybe you shouldn't wear fruit on your hat," she suggested.

Tenshi growled and angrily chopped down at the ground. The tip of her sword cut cleanly through the floorboards, but the entire building shook and rattled from a sudden minor earthquake. "Fight me, you coward!" she bellowed over the crash of debris falling through the hole in the ceiling. "Hit me! Punish me!"

She flung herself at the policewoman, swinging her flaming sword like a club, a hoarse yell of frustration on her lips. Kotohime snapped her humming jitte up to block the attack, hoping to use its tine to disarm her foe-

There was a tremendous crash and a burst of sparks as the sword of flame impacted on Kotohime's glowing truncheon, then the princess was hurled away, stumbling badly after clipping a barstool, only barely keeping a hold of her weapon. She glanced down and saw that the purple glow around her jitte had vanished, then had to desperately hurl herself out of the way of another wild swing from Tenshi that vaporized a booth seat. Before her opponent could follow up with another attack, Kotohime did a neat backflip over the low wall setting the bar area off from the rest of the diner.

The Celestial growled in frustration, the sound rising to a ragged shout as she stamped her foot with a tremor that sent crockery in the kitchen shattering on the floor. "You're doing this WRONG! Who do I have to kill to get you to-"

Kotohime's jitte leapt from the floor to be caught in midair as the policewoman hurled herself at her foe, the weapon again trailing purple flames to match Kotohime's blazing eyes. The flat-footed Celestial brought her burning brand up in a hasty guard, but Kotohime's two-handed swing burst upon Tenshi's blade in a flash of light.

Staggered from the collision, Tenshi bounced off the edge of a table, her arms splayed wide as she tried to catch her balance, but Kotohime was upon her, pounding the Celestial in the gut with the grip of her jitte, then snapping an elbow up to catch Tenshi on the jaw.

Kotohime nimbly hopped back as Tenshi clumsily tried to retaliate with a weak reverse chop before falling to one knee, the Celestial's flaming sword biting through a floorboard. Panting, Tenshi slowly pushed herself upright. She spat red, dabbed at her mouth, studied her fingertip… and regarded Kotohime with a bloody smile. "_Finally_," she hissed, her breathing speeding up.

Kotohime mentally lambasted herself for losing her cool. "You're outmatched," she informed her enemy. "I've studied under Master Konpaku himself, you're not winning this. Surrender, now."

"I wonder what you'll do to me if I kill one of your officers?" mused Tenshi with a feverish gleam in her eyes, as she traced a fingertip along her busted lower lip. "That ice fairy's your favorite, isn't she? Or what about the bird?"

Kotohime brought her jitte up in a guard and slowly began circling to put herself between Tenshi and the door. The Celestial ceased her threats and readied her own weapon… but was deliberately keeping her stance loose and vulnerable, the princess realized. She _wanted_ to get hit, it would seem.

Well. Kotohime could arrange that.

The policewoman stopped, staring, taking in the scene, letting a freeze-frame image of the smoldering ruins of the tavern fix itself in her mind.

Tenshi scowled impatiently and opened her mouth to whine-

And Kotohime deftly reached up her sleeve and flung a small paper packet at the Celestial's head, immediately closing her eyes-

Even so, she could see the brilliant burst of light from her homemade flash-powder. Tenshi bellowed-

Kotohime was already flying forward before her eyes had opened, closing the distance and snaking around behind her staggered, blinded opponent. She only had this one chance. Her hand clamped down hard on the flesh between Tenshi's neck and shoulder, fingers squeezing with expert precision-

She tried to dodge Tenshi's backhand but only partially succeeded. The Celestial's fingernails raked across Kotohime's scalp, burning like fire but doing little damage. The policewoman quickly retreated before Tenshi could follow up on it, making sure her jitte was up in a guard while she waited.

Tenshi shook her head furiously, leaving her hat at an awkward angle while her free hand rubbed at her eyes. She glared at Kotohime once she could see again. "Cheap trick," she growled. "But about as effective as whatever the hell you just did to my shoulder."

Kotohime's breath caught as Tenshi took a step forward. If this didn't work-

But when Tenshi's foot landed and skidded slightly, and the Celestial's eyes widened in surprise, Kotohime knew she had won.

"Got'cher nerves," the princess explained, smiling grimly. "The right pressure at the right points – well, you probably know about acupuncture. I just did a little something to shut down part of your nervous system. You can still move and breathe, but you're going to be numb as a narwhal on Novocain for the next hour or so," she concluded.

Tenshi's eyes bulged. She stared down as she brought her flaming brand up, then moved her free hand close enough for the skin to turn pink and blister, but her eyes didn't so much as twitch from the sensation. "You _bitch_," she spat.

"Foul language directed at officers of the law," Kotohime replied.

"This isn't over," vowed Tenshi as she moved to attack, but her movements were awkward, each step clumsy and jolting, as though she kept hitting the floor unexpectedly. The Celestial howled as she swung her weapon, but Kotohime intercepted her attacker's arm with her jitte, stopping it mid-attack and sending the crackling blade of fire tumbling through the air to rest against a wall, where it quietly went to work charring the wood.

But even before the sword had hit the ground, Kotohime followed up on her maneuver, ducking under Tenshi's now empty hand to come up behind her foe. She shoved Tenshi forward onto her knees and quickly grabbed her wrists, jamming her jitte into her sash so she could whip out her handcuffs.

Tenshi surged forward but tripped, falling sideways to land unceremoniously on her back, her peach-bearing hat flopping onto the floor next to her. She tried to rise but suddenly realized her hands were bound, and in her insensate state she couldn't get her feet under her properly.

Kotohime cocked her head as she stared down at the Celestial. "Flat on your back in a bar, kicking your heels, and it's not even dinnertime yet," she clucked disapprovingly. "I'm pretty sure they boot you out of Heaven for that kind of behavior."

Tenshi glared at the police chief, face twisted with impotent rage. "Why you… I'll-"

"Come quietly and answer some questions," Kotohime interrupted in a low, dangerous voice, crouching close to give Tenshi the full effect of her baleful glare. "You trashed my drinking hole, killed my bartender, and are distracting me from a very important case. So you'd _better_ be involved somehow, and you'd _better_ have a lot of helpful information you're going to share to make all this worthwhile. Or mark my words, I'll find a way to burn this sudden masochistic streak right out of you and teach you to fear pain again. Understand?" she growled.

Tenshi's face had gone white, and she looked about wildly in search of rescue before nervously licking her lips.

"I-"

And then with a blinding flash and a crack of thunder, a lightning bolt hit the middle of the abused tavern.

"Ah, it looks like I got here just in time!"

Kotohime blinked away the stinging afterimages, struggling to her feet even as she heard confident footfalls on the ruined tavern's floor.

"Really, Eldest Daughter, the trouble you get into when I'm away…" the newcomer continued.

The princess' vision cleared, revealing, in the center of the billowing coils of a pink and red shawl, a smiling woman in a black and pink dress, wearing a black hat with two long red ribbons extending up and back from the headgear like antennae.

"What do _you_ want?" Kotohime growled.

Iku Nagae blinked in surprise. "Why, I'm here for Miss Hinanawi, of course." Her red eyes roamed over her wrecked and ember-lit surroundings as realization slowly dawned. "Oh… is this a bad time?"

"Is it a bad time for you to try and steal my perp from me?" repeated the police chief, fighting to keep her temper. "Yes. Yes, it is."

"I see…" the oarfish youkai looked generally regretful. "I'm sorry to inconvenience you like this-"

"I'm not!" a cheerful Tenshi interrupted from the floor.

Without looking, Kotohime lashed out with a foot. Tenshi wouldn't feel it, but it sure made the princess feel better.

Iku just clucked with disapproval, the air tingling with static as she slowly shook her head, her blue-violet hair crackling slightly as it swayed. "See, that sort of thing is why I came. Tenshi is a Celestial, and as such needs to face heavenly justice."

"What Peachy needs is psychological therapy followed by a savage beating," countered Kotohime. "But first she needs to come with me and answer a few questions. You can have her once I'm done with her."

The divine messenger's expression hardened slightly. "I'm afraid I wasn't making a request."

Kotohime stared for a long moment, and when that wasn't enough slowly drew her jitte. "I know Heaven may be above Gensokyo in a spatial and metaphysical sense," she said quietly, dangerously, "but I am this land's princess and police chief, and I will _not_ have my sovereign jurisdiction challenged by a bunch of harp-strumming, haloed layabouts."

"It's really no challenge of all," declared a smiling Iku, before quickly reaching out to grab Tenshi's shoulder.

Kotohime let out a hoarse yell and swung her truncheon, but only hit the burst of photons as the Celestial and her handler both vanished in a flash of light, the thunderclap and stench of ozone following a split-second later.

The police chief stared up through the jagged hole in the roof, resisting the urge to start blasting away at the clouds above. Instead she scowled down at the body of the tavern's owner for a few moments, before turning towards the exit-

She whirled around as the crime scene with struck by another lightning bolt.

"Forgot the sword," explained a sheepish Iku.

Kotohime only stared in sullen silence as the glorified flying eel bustled over to scoop up the burning brand, before disappearing in another flash and thunderclap without further word.

The princess stomped out the door, grumbling like a stopped-up garbage disposal. Her favorite bar wrecked, another crime to puzzle out, and she _still_ hadn't gotten lunch.

-x-

* * *

><p>-9-<p>

_Gensokyo Police Department  
>17:39<em>

Kotohime rubbed her eyes wearily before taking a long pull from her cup of coffee. She was hoping the caffeine boost would compel her brain cells to perform, but no such luck. She grouchily tapped her pencil against her desk, staring at the blank sheet of paper as if it was its fault that she was stuck.

Growling, she started writing. _Incident at_- she crossed it out quickly. _Commotion at Kirisame Residence_, she wrote instead. _Marisa, Alice missing. Hanged doll, fruitstain, vague note._

She flipped through her notepad until she found and reread the mysterious letter left at the maybe-a-crime-scene. Together for the end, huh?

_Nitoribot destroyed_, Kotohime jotted down next. She wondered if it had happened simultaneously as the Kirisame Residence fracas, or after. It'd be nice to know if there were two baddies running around or not.

Next to that, the policewoman scribbled _Aki food bank shootout_. She stared at the words in case anything about them started to make sense, but moved on to _Tenshi crashes my watering hole_. It was quite hard not to view that altercation as anything but a personal attack. She was forced to admit that she'd handled it less than professionally, which had almost certainly been her foe's intent.

So. Four destructive events over the course of one day. It was certainly possible for the wild world of Gensokyo to provide such entertainment naturally, but… Kotohime chewed on her lip. This obviously wasn't natural, was it? So where were the connections?

She drummed on her desk with her pencil, thinking for a minute or two, then drew a line between the _Kirisame Residence_ and _Nitoribot_. Both Alice and the kappa were Marisa's friends, right? Mystia had jabbered about some sort of romantic undertones, and though Kotohime found that frankly hard to believe, maybe the sparrow was on to something. If, say, Alice, were feeling murderously possessive towards Marisa, she could have attacked Nitori to finish off a rival, then… trashed Marisa's house, abducted the witch and left behind an effigy of herself hanging from the ceiling?

_Tap tap tap_ went the pencil.

So what about the other hootenannies? A food bank gets shot up by some bonkers autumn deities, and a Celestial smashes a tavern for giggles. Two random, independent plots that just so happened to occur on the same day.

On the other hand, maybe they _weren't_, so Kotohime drew a line linking the two.

Some sort of unholy heavenly alliance, perhaps? Did the Akis know any Celestials? Or were those snooty jerks in heaven able to use minor goddesses as hired muscle? …Hired muscle to trash a food bank? How did that benefit Celestials?

Kotohime groaned and rested her head against her desk. Detectiving was _hard_. If only she had Reimu's intuition. Her methodology of randomly flying about while attacking suspicious-looking characters probably wouldn't change much, Kotohime admitted, but it'd be nice to know she was making progress.

Well… the princess straightened up, eyes half-closed as the ideas started flowing. The Celestials didn't get any benefit from the Akis' rampage, but the whole hostage situation _had_ tied up Kotohime for a good hour. An hour Tenshi's ilk could have been doing who-knew-what elsewhere. The Akis going bonkers might have been nothing but a distraction.

And if _that_ were the case… what if Tenshi had been a distraction too?

Kotohime solemnly drew lines linking the food bank and bar incidents with the other two. So. Somebody hits Marisa's place and Nitori, while others distract the police with unrelated attacks. Kotohime's weary face broke into a wide and sunny smile. Knowing that she was competing against a malign mastermind was certainly more interesting than a bunch of unrelated altercations.

She leaned back in her chair, propping her feet up on her desk as she stared up at her office ceiling, deep in thought. A smokescreen, of course. Should she take the plunge and try to discern what lay behind it, or continue to flap her arms until the fog dispersed? Did she have the time? The note said something about the end of the world, but Gensokyo saw one to three near-Armageddons a year.

So far the two somewhat-related events had involved Marisa, Alice and Nitori, and a note about jealousy. Alice and Nitori didn't have much to do with each other, so Marisa seemed to be the linking element. So who else did Marisa know that might get involved in this mystery?

The door to Kotohime's office slammed open as someone rushed inside. "Chief!" gasped Mystia. "We've got a problem! There's an ongoing attack at-"

"The Scarlet Devil Mansion," Kotohime finished calmly. She swiveled in her chair and got up, smiling at the look of shock on the night sparrow's face. "Let's see if we can't save Miss Knowledge before anything nasty happens to her."

Mystia blinked, still bewildered. "But how did-"

"No time for talk, to the garage!" Kotohime ordered, already hustling out of her office.

"The what?" Mystia stumbled as she tried to follow, as though keeping track of Kotohime's thought process was too difficult to do while walking.

"We are a police department. Policewomen have police _cars_. Police cars have to be kept in a garage. Ipso facto," the police chief lectured.

"But we can _fly!_" the sparrow all but shouted.

Kotohime ignored her, slapping her badge as she took the steps three at a time. "Cirno, Rumia, we're heading out. Get Team Nemesis and meet us at the garage." She didn't wait for a reply, instead sprinting down a hall and kicking open a set of double doors-

That led into a large chamber containing a pair of police cruisers.

"The garage," the princess said as Mystia skidded to a stop behind her.

"I wasn't arguing," the bird youkai mumbled. "Just don't see the point…"

"Of course you don't," Kotohime said breezily, immensely cheered by the sight of the vehicles before her. They were overbuilt brutes of automobiles, probably American imports if Kotohime was any judge, if not oni-made. Their bodies were solid and blocky, their chrome detailing gleamed even in the subdued lighting of the garage, and best of all their purple stripes matched Kotohime's robes perfectly.

The police chief was still grinning like it was her birthday as she popped open one car's door and slid into the driver's seat. She let her fingertips trace reverently over the steering wheel and gear shift, then realized she was still the only one in the vehicle. "Stop gawping and hop in, we've got an emergency to deal with!" she barked at Mystia, finally shaking her fellow officer out of her daze.

The night sparrow reluctantly sat down in the passenger seat, her long nails scraping over the buckle as she engaged her seat belt.

"Don't know why you're bothering, these things are built like tanks," Kotohime commented. She swiveled in her seat, checking the garage entrance. "Where's Cirno and Rumia?"

"Here!" came an enthusiastic yell. The two not-quite-children scrambled through the doors, stopped in their tracks at the sight of the cars, then dove towards the unoccupied one with squeals of excitement.

"Hold up!" Kotohime barked, opening the door enough to stick her head out. "Where's the immortals?"

Rumia darkened slightly in her unique version of a blush. "I _tried_ to get them to come, but Kaguya said she had almost figured out-"

Insolent moon princess! Kotohime grit her teeth and jabbed a finger towards the rest of the building. "Rumia, drag them out of their office and meet us at the Scarlet Devil Mansion. Cirno, hop in the back."

There was a duet of disappointed groans, then Rumia halfheartedly skipped out, while Cirno struggled to open the back door of Kotohime's cruiser and took her seat behind the wire mesh barrier that kept perps from strangling the driver. Once the fairy slammed her door shut, Kotohime eagerly twisted the ignition, growling along with the motor.

"Delicious. You can just _taste_ the internal combustion."

"You sure can," Mystia agreed, trying not to cough. "I hope this room is well-ventilated."

"It will be in a minute," the car's driver said cheerily.

"Pardon?"

"For every meaningful disturbance that's happened today, there has been an equally deadly distraction," Kotohime lectured. "But, for this attack on the Scarlet Devil Mansion-"

"What makes you think they're connected?" protested Mystia.

"-we haven't gotten our distraction yet," Kotohime went on. "Which means our next opponent is waiting for us to make our move, and will try to slow us down as we respond to the real problem. So." She tightened her grip on the steering wheel, baring her teeth. "There's an alley to the right of the headquarters, yeah?"

"Uh-huh," nodded Cirno. "Wait, which one's right ag-"

"Perfect." Kotohime slammed the stick forward a notch and gunned the gas, sending the cruiser swerving backwards in a ninety-degree turn and nearly hitting a shelf holding spare parts, but leaving the car facing a brick wall instead of the metal garage doors. She rolled down the window and leaned out, fetching an explosive from one of her sleeves. "Fire in the hole," she warned as she lobbed the grenade to roll to a halt against the wall.

Cirno frowned in confusion. "What hole?"

And then there was a deafening blast that sent bricks flying and kicked up a cloud of dust, which was immediately shredded by a police car filled with screaming women hurtling forward at ludicrous speed.

Kotohime kept a death grip on the steering wheel and flexed her knees as the car bounded over the pile of debris and the lip of the hole, immediately making a hard left to avoid hitting the building next to the police headquarters. One loitering fairy was fast enough to dodge out of the way, but Kotohime got a brief glimpse of another's gobsmacked expression before it exploded into a cloud of glitter under her front tire. She gunned the engine as soon as she was lined up with the alley exit and burst onto the streets proper, slewing around to start her race across town.

"Alright, what've we got?" the princess murmured to herself, fiddling with the rear view mirror as she tried to get a look at what they were leaving behind.

"Car!" screeched Mystia.

"No, looks like motorcycles," Kotohime corrected while swerving to avoid an oncoming vehicle. She tried to remember what side of the road she ought to be driving on even as she took a closer look at who had been waiting in front of the police station. A dozen or so riders were hastily reforming from ambush positions to pursue Kotohime's cruiser. The streetlights glinted off shiny black jumpsuits, and while Kotohime didn't recognize the make of the motorcycles, they were obviously sleek and sporty machines built for speed and performance. "A biker gang?" she wondered out loud. "That doesn't really fit with the day's theme. I was expecting maybe-"

"Half-car," Cirno said, pointing a finger through the mesh barrier.

The police chief hauled on the wheel and swung around the other motorist with a squeal of tires. "They're called 'trucks,' goodness knows why," she informed her lieutenant. She checked the rear view mirror again to see their pursuers falling into formation, one large mass taking up the middle of the road, while two smaller groups pulled ahead to try and surround the police cruiser. "Emphasis on try," Kotohime chortled as she stamped down on the gas pedal.

This really was just what she needed after the fiasco at the bar: a good old-fashioned vehicular chase with motorcycle stunts and squealing tires and exploding fruit stands and everything.

"Can we turn on the siren?" asked the ice fairy eagerly.

"An excellent idea," Kotohime agreed. She leaned forward to peer at the dashboard, and all the strange dials and buttons and switches and-

"TURN!" shrieked Mystia.

Kotohime glanced up in time to see a rapidly-approaching tea house and wrenched the wheel to the right, bouncing off the driver-side car door and making Cirno tumble all over the back seat.

"JUST FOCUS ON DRIVING!" the night sparrow bellowed, her normally pleasant voice hoarse with terror.

Kotohime shot Mystia a look that even Cirno would have called frosty. "Need I remind you which of us is the police chief?"

Her subordinate said nothing, focusing instead on sitting rigid with her taloned hands digging into the sides of her seat.

"That's what I thought." The princess slapped the panel of mysterious buttons, simultaneously activating the siren, seat warmers, and switching on some pounding electronic music that Kotohime immediately started bobbing her head to. _Untz-untz-untz-untz_. It did _not_ get any better than this.

While shooting through a red light to a chorus of blaring horns, the policewoman resumed peering into the rear view mirror. "Well, they're managing to keep up, but I can't help but wonder how they planned to stop-"

Cirno shouted with alarm as the rear windshield cracked and pinged with several sharp impacts, like horizontal hailstones. Mystia seemed torn between staying as still as possible and ducking out of sight, but compromised by adopting an uncomfortable-looking hunched posture with a terrified whimper.

Kotohime rolled her eyes. "Honestly, people, bulletproof glass."

Something larger thudded into the rear windshield. Kotohime got a look at it in the mirror, then flexed her legs to push her upper torso out the driver-side window, leering back at their attackers, one hand tugging at an eyelid while her other kept the wheel steady. "_And shuriken-proof!_" she added. She pulled her head back into the car as several darkened metal objects hissed past. "Stupid ninja bikers."

Then a produce stall on the side of the road detonated with a virulent green explosion as they passed, pelting the cruiser with flaming cabbage.

Kotohime blinked with surprise before hauling on the wheel to send the cruiser screeching down a side road, dodging a brightly-colored barrage of fireballs of various sizes. "Not sure about danmaku-proof, though," she muttered to herself.

Mystia made a strangled sound through her clenched teeth.

"Well they wouldn't _be_ ninja if they didn't have deadly surprises for us," shrugged Kotohime, while the throbbing music on the radio picked up another layer of _untz_. This stuff was pretty good, she decided. Perfect for the road _or_ the bedroom.

She checked behind them again and saw the pack of motorcycles smoothly turn to follow, two of their number actually leaping off the street to drive along the side of the buildings before landing on pavement again, the show-offs. The lead biker, her identity concealed by her bodysuit and black-visored helmet, held up a fluttering strip of paper between two fingers. A split-second later spirals of fist-sized green fireballs surged forward to impact on the street, sidewalks, buildings, and everything but the frantically swerving and dodging Kotohime.

Mystia whimpered each time the car went up on two wheels, while a tumbling weight and angry yelling marked Cirno's passage back and forth over the back seat. "Don't suppose this thing has any rear-mounted weapons?" Kotohime wondered aloud. Then she swore as a direct hit slewed the rear of the vehicle to the left, Cirno's yelp audible over the shattering rear windshield. The princess fought to keep the car steady and risked a quick glance back to check the damage, but most of the important bits seemed to be there. "Yeah, could definitely use a tail-gunner…" she trailed off as a wide smile spread across her face. "Cirno!"

The ice fairy jerked her head up, her eyes dizzy and her hair frazzled and full of powdered glass – or possibly frost. "What?"

Kotohime looked over her shoulder to grin at her. "Spell cards on motorcycles!"

"What?"

"You got your spell cards, right?" She asked. When Cirno nodded, Kotohime continued "Then show 'em what you've got!"

Cirno beamed before spinning around, standing on the seat cushions and propping herself up with one arm on a headrest while the other dug around in a pocket for her collection of magic. The fairy yanked one of her spell cards out, glanced at the text scrawled across it, and brandished it through the broken rear window at the pursuing bikers, her chest swelling as she announced which devastating attack she would unleash upon her foes. "Freeze Sign, P-"

Kotohime sighed as the scrap of paper tumbled away behind them, torn from Cirno's fingers by the car's slipstream.

The ice fairy looked back at her, flustered, then went back to rummaging. "Uh, I've got more… ahah!"

"Just anything but-"

"Ice Sign, 'Icicle Fall!'" crowed Cirno, the spell card wrapped tightly in her fist as she thrust it at the ninja motorcyclists. The air temperature dropped a good ten degrees as lines of icicles spread out to either side of the speeding police cruiser before shooting backwards in a fan-like pattern at the oncoming bikers. Javelin-sized lengths of ice shattered against the asphalt and perforated vehicles parked at the side of the road, and though the ninja bikers had quick reflexes, not every strike could be dodged completely. A fiery crash lit up Kotohime's rearview mirror, while at least two other motorcycles skidded out of control as their riders were blown out of their saddles.

But the lead biker, the ninja who had started the vehicular danmaku duel, accelerated towards the cruiser, safely tailgating in the painfully obvious blind spot that characterized Cirno's most infamous spell card.

So Kotohime slammed on the brakes.

The car rocked as the motorcycle smashed into the rear bumper, catapulting the biker up and over the car's roof to tumble down the front windshield onto the hood. The ninja barely had time to begin to stir before Kotohime hit the brakes again, launching her attacker off the car (and sending Cirno to crash into the mesh barrier separating her from the front seat). Then without a moment's hesitation Kotohime stomped the accelerator. The car's suspension squeaked as it bounced over the ninja left sprawled in the road.

Mystia's head snapped to the side, staring at Kotohime with eyes torn between incredulity and panic.

"What?" Kotohime sent the car drifting through an intersection, leaving behind streaks of burnt rubber and a brief cloud of bluish sparks. "They're _ninja_, inherently disposable. It's no use taking them alive anyway, they either never talk or swallow some suicide pill that makes their mouths foam, and if it gets on your shoes you can never quite get the smell out." She risked a glance at the backseat. "Cirno?"

The ice fairy popped her head back up, brushing her tangled blue hair out of her face. "Yeah?"

"Good work back there, exactly what we needed."

"Thanks!"

"Now it's your turn to drive."

Cirno blinked. "What?"

Kotohime slapped a switch that dropped the mesh screen dividing the car, then reached back to grab the chilly little fairy. "Hold this," she muttered to Mystia, yanking Cirno forward and into the bird youkai's lap. Then Kotohime flung herself towards the backseat, squirming and twisting her way out of her chair and smashing Mystia's head with her butt in the process.

_"What?"_ repeated Cirno.

"_WHAT?!"_ echoed Mystia.

"Take the wheel!" Kotohime ordered. To her credit, Cirno immediately scooted over into the driver's seat, yanking the car out of a collision course with a nice-looking apartment building.

Meanwhile, the police chief thrust a palm upward and unleashed a blast of magic at the car's roof, shearing off a chunk of metal that regrettably included the cruiser's lights and siren. Before the debris had hit the road behind the now-coasting vehicle, Kotohime was upright, her jitte out and ready –

Just as the ninja, her jumpsuit scuffed but still very much alive, hurled herself forward from where she had been hanging on to the back of the car.

"The old 'underside cling' trick!" the police chief shouted, meeting a flurry of slashes with her own blunt weapon. Her assailant had one palm flat against the car's trunk, digging some sort of climbing aid into the metal, and was standing on the cruiser's rear bumper as she dueled with Kotohime, flexing her knees to compensate as Cirno led the car on a drunken rampage across every lane in the street.

A gradually slowing drunken rampage…

"Cirno, can you reach the gas?" Kotohime shouted without looking back at her driver.

"Sure!"

Kotohime's eyes widened with realization just before the car started drifting towards a rent-to-own furniture store. "Mystia, steer!"

The night sparrow youkai sang a wordless note of terror, but the car jerked away from the sidewalk and back onto the road.

"Which one's the gas?" called an oblivious Cirno from underneath the steering column.

"Right!" snapped Kotohime, even while her jitte met the ninja's oncoming blade with a clang-

And then she was crashing into the back of the driver's seat as the police cruiser came to an abrupt halt in the middle of the road, sending the ninja flying up and over the car once again.

There was a moment of silence broken only by the growling of the engine and the incongruously uptempo music, before Cirno asked "Was that it?"

Then Kotohime heard the roars of the approaching motorcycle pack. "Get down!" she barked. It wasn't really necessary for her or Cirno, being immortals, but Mystia whimpered and obligingly trying to wedge herself underneath the passenger-side dashboard-

And then the motorcycle-riding ninja assassins were upon them, a hurricane of screaming tires and snarling engines, the night air filled with sleek black shapes coming within inches of the stationary police car, a flurry of shuriken marking their passage. Kotohime's baton whipped through the air as she deflected the most dangerous of the incoming projectiles, but she could still hear the thuds as the thrown weapons embedded themselves in the upholstery of the car's interior, or pinged into its metal hull.

After that timeless moment, the storm was past, and the eight or so remaining bikers were receding into the distance ahead of them… before slowing, coming about to face their prey once more.

Kotohime rose from her crouch, looking over the mangled remainder of the car's roof, sizing up the enemy. "Mystia, you alright?"

"Mmmmrrrgh." A few molted feathers drifted onto the road as the night sparrow slowly raised her head, her hat askew and her eyes wide and crazed.

"Scooch over, Cirno, trade places with Mystia," continued the princess. Cirno obligingly crawled over Mystia's lap, then prodded the other policewoman until Offier Lorelei reluctantly took her place in the driver's seat. "Now then." Kotohime cracked her knuckles. "These guys are between us and our destination."

"Buh-uh-_but_ chief," Mystia protested, finding her voice, "we can get to the Scarlet Devil Mansion just fine if we got out and flew-"

"Our destination is the lakefront district," Kotohime corrected. The night sparrow was bright enough not to argue. "We're going to smash right through these jokers, then it'll be clear sailing."

"Driving!" added Cirno.

"They can outrun us," Mystia weakly pointed out.

"Can they?" The police chief favored her subordinates with a confident grin, then straightened up from her perch in the back seat. She thumped the car's crumpled roof with one hand while the other flourished her weapon at the enemy. "Drive me closer!" she commanded in a clear voice ringing with authority, "I want to hit them with my jitte!"

The night sparrow whimpered but obligingly slammed down on the accelerator, almost as if she was trying to dislodge the woman standing up in the back of the vehicle. Kotohime decided to give her the benefit of a doubt as she tensed her legs and gripped her police baton, riding like a charioteer into the fray.

The surviving ninja bikers gunned their own engines and maneuvered to meet Kotohime head-on, several riders doing wheelies as they brandished their swords in challenge. The princess' toothy grin grew wider.

It took the greatest minds of Medieval Europe to invent jousting. Now, at long last, Kotohime had perfected it.

She started yelling a wordless battle cry, quickly taken up by Cirno as the fairy bounced in excitement in the passenger seat, then even Mystia added her melodious voice to it. The throbbing radio music built to an tooth-rattling climax. And then the ninja were upon them.

Kotohime lashed out with a two-handed swing and saw a helmet go flying, though she couldn't tell if there was a head inside of it. Then she was parrying her jitte without thinking about it, deflecting a trio of hissing shuriken before thrusting out with her baton to knock another rider out of his seat and into the front wheel of another bike, sending the vehicle spinning along the pavement. The police chief had to duck as a fourth ninja ramped his motorcycle off the front of the police cruiser, making Mystia and Cirno cry out as the windshield cracked into a spiderweb pattern. The air was filled with the snarls of the engines and the _untz_ of the speakers and the sound of metal impacts along the front and side of the police car.

And then they were out of the fleet of bikers, roaring along the avenue leading to the Misty Lake.

Kotohime bounced back up and looked behind her as the ninja motorcyclists – or at least the fewm that survived – swung their vehicles around and immediately sped up to close with the police car. She smelled the acrid stench of a damaged engine just as Mystia declared "We're in trouble!"

Sure enough, there were several ragged gashes in the hood that were streaming thick black smoke to trail in the car's wake. On top of that, the cruiser wasn't going quite as fast as it had been. Kotohime looked ahead, eyeing the distances. It was going to be close…

"Left or right?" asked Mystia. The street ahead ended in a perpendicular intersection with another road running along the lake's shoreline.

"Straight," ordered Kotohime with a predatory grin. "Cirno, you're a hood ornament now."

The ice fairy blinked at her superior, then shrugged. "'kay." She obligingly crawled out the passenger window and onto the hood of the car, keeping her balance in a squat over the front bumper.

"Mystia, keep her steady…" Kotohime turned her gaze back on their pursuers, who would be in melee range within seconds. "Steady…"

There was a jolt as the car skipped the curb and slammed down onto a wooden dock. Mystia kept the car roaring down the short pier without Kotohime's prompting. Presumably she'd caught on. Without a moment's hesitation, the ninja biker gang followed them, not even slowing as their prey sped towards an apparent dead end.

"_Cirno,_ _now!_"

"Now w-"

"_FREEZE!"_ bellowed Kotohime.

The police car sailed off the end of the pier-

-and bounced once before racing along the sheet of ice Cirno was creating from her perch on the hood.

The ice fairy had her arms down and forward, palms out as she sprayed an arctic wind that temporarily froze the water's surface. The ice patch evaporated almost immediately, but by then the police car had moved on. It was like having a roving stretch of road always under the vehicle.

The ninja bikers did not share this benefit.

A series of splashes marked the ninja gang's progress towards the bottom of the lake. Kotohime watched the demise of her enemies with a satisfied smirk, then settled down in the back seat and enjoyed the wind in her hair and the starry night sky. "Well played, ladies," she drawled as the phat beats on the radio faded out.

"We could've flown," Mystia said to herself, beginning to shake as her adrenaline high wore off. "Could've flown and skipped all that, drove instead. Could've flown, drove instead. Could've flown-"

"Can I come in now?" yelled Cirno from the front of the car. "It's windy out here!"

"Just another minute," Kotohime told her, eye on the horizon. There was a bright smear along the lakeshore, the lights from the Scarlet Devil Mansion's docks diffused through the mist that settled over the estate like a shroud. "Bit to the left, Officer Lorelei, there's a boat ramp we can use."

"-instead. Could've flown..."

Kotohime reached forward to change the station, eventually setting on some folk guitars to drown out the night sparrow.

-x-

* * *

><p>-10-<p>

_Scarlet Devil Mansion  
>18:29<em>

A heavy fog lay over the Scarlet Devil Mansion like a shroud… wait, she'd already used that metaphor, Kotohime remembered. Right, the fog lay over the mansion like a sheet of cotton pressed against a bed of nails. The manor proper and the surrounding grounds were vague, menacing shapes lurking in the murk, while numerous towers and spires impaled the skyline above. It was a scene of gothic horror transplanted from Eastern Europe to the Japanese countryside, a locale where you could throw around words like "macabre" without feeling silly, the ideal abode for a bloodsucking monster.

And then Mystia brought the police cruiser to a stop before the manor's main entrance, where the gatekeeper was currently asleep, leaned against the brick wall.

Kotohime stood up in the backseat, staring perplexedly over the remaining half of the car's roof. The tall redhead in the green-and-white Chinese-ish uniform didn't react to the growling and grumbling car just a few feet away from her, and continued to snore softly in the lamplight.

Cirno stood up to look over the passenger side dashboard. "Oh, she's snoozing, as usual."

"As usual?" repeated Kotohime.

The ice fairy nodded, her blue hair and blue bow flopping. "You can catch her awake around breakfast or lunch or supper, but that's about it. China's not good for much else."

Kotohime's eyes narrowed as she considered the implications. "I see. Well, if nothing's woken her up this evening, I guess we beat the baddies to the crime scene-"

"That useless gatekeeper could sleep through a dragon attack," Mystia interrupted, coming out of her stupor at the rudest possible time. "The mansion could've been leveled and she'd still be like this. Come on, we can just-" she shot her boss a meaningful glance "-_fly_ over the walls and let ourselves in."

Officer Lorelei was taking charge of the situation, Kotohime noted as the battered car's engine rattled and died and Gensokyo's police force disembarked. Normally it'd be time to consider a promotion, but as it was she wanted to give the night sparrow a ding upside her head. She gave the bird-girl a pointed look until Mystia wordlessly tossed her the keys, then Kotohime walked over to inspect the gatekeeper. Hong Meiling was in her usual uniform, she had the same mixture of honed athleticism and almost childish friendliness the princess remembered, and she was quite happily snoring on her feet.

"'ello?" the police chief tried, not-so-gently tapping Meiling's collarbone.

The Chinese youkai didn't even flinch, but toppled over sideways to collapse onto the lawn, all without disrupting the steady rhythm of her snores.

Kotohime sighed and joined her underlings in hopping over the mansion walls into the mists beyond.

The fog seemed unseasonably chill as the trio of policewomen advanced up the long causeway, paired gargoyles leering down at them from the columns that lined the street. The mansion remained a lurking darkness ahead, its few lights diffused into corpse-glows by the chill haze, a pallid luminance that failed to illuminate much of anything.

It was atmospheric as all hell, Kotohime noted with approval, but it would make it a little harder to detect any threats. "Cirno, keep an eye out for any zombies or skellies," she ordered. "Mystia, you've got the best night vision, you watch the skies for bats, crows, or flying medusa heads. I'll-"

"_Who dares intrude on my demesne?_"

The voice seemed to come from all around them, as cold as the fog and as arrogant as the towers and spires of the mansion, the voice of a noblewoman who had found a stain on a "cleaned" teacup or a roach on the ballroom floor.

Cirno and Mystia looked about nervously, unconsciously backing towards Kotohime so the three of them could stand together. But the police chief held her ground and held her head high. "The law," she replied.

Mystia ducked and whimpered as a storm of bats exploded out of the fog, just missing the three intruders as the flying rodents winged up and into the sky.

"And what makes you think your laws apply here, mortal?" the voice demanded.

"Immortal," corrected Kotohime. "And look, normally I'd love to banter with you, but we're kinda in hot pursuit here. There _was_ a report that your quote demesne unquote had been attacked."

The unseen woman laughed haughtily. "You were too slow, then!"

The fog suddenly lifted, there was a flap of leathery wings, and the three officers looked up to behold the manion's owner. Framed against a blood-soaked moon was a woman casually perched on thin air, one elbow on her crooked knee as she cradled her chin, a pair of batlike wings unfurled behind her. Her dress seemed to glow a soft red in the unnatural lighting, her pallid skin and pale blue hair were as beautiful as they were corpselike, but her crimson eyes shone with unnatural vitality.

"Rest assured," Remilia Scarlet continued, "those _other _intruders were no match for my defenses. The warriors at my command are without peer, while _I_ am heir to the legendary Vlad Tepes himself." Her eyes flashed with a dark power. "Now remove yourselves from my lair, lest I sate my thirst-"

Someone coughed politely.

A grey-haired but ambiguously young-ish woman in a prim blue dress and frilly white apron was standing at attention a few paces away from the confrontation. She met Kotohime's eye and gave the princess a slight nod of acknowledgement, then resumed staring neutrally into the middle distance.

Remilia dove to the ground to land next to her servant in the blink of an eye. "_Yes_, Sakuya?" she demanded tersely.

"Milady, I am pleased to report that there is no sign of the attackers, and that the damage to the library appears slight," said the maid, bowing her head so that the pair of braids flanking her face dangled briefly. "Milady will also be pleased to hear that I have checked the basement and can confirm that your-"

The vampire's head snapped to one side to glare at Sakuya.

"-belongings have not been disturbed," the maidservant finished after only a split-second's hesitation.

"I expected nothing less," Remilia said with a disarmingly toothy smile. She turned to face Gensokyo's finest once more, nearly shining with poise and confidence. "So as you can see-"

"Although Patchouli's been kidnapped," Sakuya added.

"WHAT?!"

And suddenly a proud and powerful vampire lady was reduced to a blubbering child in a pink nightdress.

Kotohime took a step backwards, more disturbed by what she was seeing here than the crime scenes she'd visited earlier that day. It was like watching a warrior in the prime of her youth wither into a senile invalid, or a grand work of art crumble into dust. As royalty, Kotohime knew the importance of charm and composure, and seeing another would-be princess fall so far, so fast, hit alarmingly close to home.

"But, but, she's supposed to know spells to defend herself," the vampire sobbed, clutching Sakuya's dress to plaintively look up at the woman. "How could this happen to Patchy?!"

"I can only speculate, milady," the maid replied calmly. Sakuya was still looking somewhere near the horizon and trying to maintain a neutral expression, but Kotohime detected pinkish cheeks and a not-quite-concealed, self-satisfied smile.

Remilia whimpered, then turned to face the policewomen, her face crumpled with misery and her eyes shining with tears. "You'll find my Patchy, won't you, lady? That's your job, right?"

Kotohime could only stare in open-mouthed horror.

"We'll do whatever it takes to rescue Miss Knowledge," Mystia spoke up when the police chief made no move to reply. "Could we have access to the crime scene and look for clues?"

"Yes! Yes-yes-yes, just get Patchy back!" the vampire child ordered. She jabbed the mansion's chief maid with a finger. "Sakuya, show these nice people to the library so they can find Patchy."

"Milady, I must protest," the grey-haired woman answered, still calm. "It is highly irregular for outsiders-"

"Sakuuuuyaaaaa…" whined Remilia.

The maid's smile grew almost imperceptibly wider as she reached into a pocket for a handkerchief. "Very well, milady," she said, dabbing at a mild nosebleed. "Right this way, please, ladies."

"You-" Kotohime coughed, struggling to speak with a dry throat. "You two go on ahead," she told Cirno and Mystia. "Search the crime scene and stuff. I'm gonna call this one in."

Cirno gave her a puzzled look, but Mystia nodded smartly, her wings flapping once along with the gesture. "As ordered. I'll have a full report ready once we get back to the station."

"Yeah, you do that," the princess said distractedly. Kotohime turned away from the mansion to amble back down the path to the front gate. She had to get her head together. Seeing Remilia Scarlet fall apart like that… _blergh_. It was going to take a hell of a distraction to take her mind off _that_.

She'd almost reached the outer wall when she heard a faint noise, a flapping of fabric, like a cape… or perhaps a loincloth.

"Princess."

The voice was male, low, rough and gravely, practically oozing with testosterone. Kotohime shivered just from listening to it, and slowly turned to face the speaker.

Someone was standing, tall and proud, in the shadows at the base of the wall, half-hidden by the inky darkness. Light gleamed from the man's glasses, though Kotohime was more interested in the way light gleamed from his muscles. Each bicep and pectoral and abdominal was lovingly caressed by the moonlight as if by a tender lover, and it was all Kotohime could do to restrain her own hands from-

"I see you made it despite the culprit's diversion," the man growled, his silvery hair gleaming like steel wires.

"Huh? Oh yeah, the bikers." Kotohime shrugged. "We made it, but the punks did their job and kept us from getting here on time." She glanced back at the spires and turrets of the Scarlet Devil Mansion. "Don't suppose you saw what happened?"

"No. But I have some ideas." The muscleman shifted slightly on his sandals, his loincloth swaying distractingly from the motion. "Whoever hit the mansion knew exactly where to go and how to get in. Since all potential culprits for an inside job are accounted for, it must've been an outsider who knew the place well."

"Yeah, that narrows the list down considerably." Kotohime scratched her jaw, wondering if she ought to just round up the usual suspects and drop them in the clink for a night so she could go on to bed. Then she remembered what else had been going on that day. "Hey, any luck finding where those guns came from?"

"Not much," her informant admitted. "The local anti-socials have... assured me they aren't involved. I tried to question Lady Yakumo on the matter of border traffic, but nobody's seen her in town for days."

Kotohime's eyebrows shot up. Interesting. "That's pretty suspicious," she said.

The man nodded. "I'd hoped Yukari had learned her lesson after getting involved in the Spring Snow Incident, but..."

"I suppose that makes her our primary suspect," Kotohime concluded. "Good work." She looked back at the mansion, wondering what her subordinates would turn up to add to the case. "I'll continue investigating along the legal avenues, you-"

There was another rustle of a loincloth flapping in the night air, and Kotohime knew without turning back that the man was gone.

"-do what you do best, yeah," she finished, smiling slightly. Well. That conversation had just been full of revelations.

She hopped over the Scarlet Devil Mansion's perimeter, finding the banged-up police car and sleeping gatekeeper right where she'd left them. Kotohime frowned down at the slumbering woman, and the little bubble of mucus on Meiling's nose. "Chief?" Mystia glided in for a landing, a frustrated look on her face. "Cirno and I did the best we could," she went on, as her ice fairy partner fluttered up to join her, "but there's not much to see, just some broken glass."

"No note or anything?" Kotohime asked. When her deputies shook their heads, she shrugged. "Well, it's not like whoever attacked Nitori left behind a calling card." She sighed. "At least she's safe with us."

"She's what?" Cirno tilted her head like a confused puppy.

"Nitori's back at the station," explained the police chief patiently.

"She is?"

Kotohime shifted her gaze to Mystia. "I didn't put her under protective custody?" When the night sparrow shook her head, the princess looked up at the sky, considering. "Balls," she concluded.

Mystia coughed. "Er, do you want us to send someone to get her, chief?"

"No point. She's either dead or captured by now," Kotohime said with a shrug. Her gaze lingered on the city lights on the other side of the Misty Lake. "What's keeping Team Nemesis? They really ought to be here-"

Mystia suddenly sucked in a breath of air for a good scream, but the police chief was already moving as her ears picked up the descending roar. She tackled Officer Lorelei, shielding the night sparrow's slender frame with her own invincible body, as something whooshed by just overhead in a blaze of sound and heat and light. There was a tremendous crash as whatever it was hit the lawn just yards away from them.

Kotohime quickly pushed herself to her feet, taking in the burning wreck of a police cruiser that had just hit like a comet. "Cirno?" she asked, realizing she was one subordinate short.

A sparkling fog a few feet away condensed into a familiar fairy. "I got hit by a car again, but this time I wasn't even playing in the street!" complained Cirno.

"You alright, Mystia?"

"You're heavier than you look," came a mumbled voice from the lawn.

"I'll pretend I didn't hear that." Kotohime crossed her arms, waiting patiently. Sure enough, the driver-side door of the blazing car swung open as a smoke-shrouded figure stepped out, completely unconcerned by the flames. Then the driver noticed her audience and strolled closer, hands in her pockets.

"Heya chief." Mokou's open jacket looked a little singed, but her talisman-studded white pants could have come fresh out of the laundry. She didn't bother to salute, and stood before Kotohime with a wide smile on her face, her ash-colored hair swaying from the inferno behind her.

The police chief held her gaze for a moment, then nodded at the wreck. "Run into some trouble?"

"Motorcyclists and firebombs, wouldn't call it 'trouble,'" shrugged Mokou.

"Where's your squad?"

Another shrug. "Had to chuck Rumia out the window when we caught fire on the lakeside road."

Great. Who knew how many people and unsupervised Rumia could have chewed on since then?

"And Kaguya?" pressed Kotohime with superhuman patience.

Mokou's smile grew wider. "Well, you know the problem with seatbelts," she said, inclining her head slightly towards the wreck. "They jam at the _worst_ times."

The princess hissed in vexation. "I was curious about her theory concerning the culprit."

"She was going on about it at the beginning, before things got interesting," said Mokou. She strolled over, closer to the wreck, trying to spot what was left of her partner. "Wasn't much to it, really. Said we're up against-"

Kotohime just sighed when the burning car exploded, sending a white-hot steel door scything into Mokou. Mystia squawked at the sudden violence, Cirno added a pile of ice chunks to the scene, and yes, Meiling had managed to sleep through the commotion yet again.

A shame, really. The whole car chase had been a lot of fun, but everything afterward was turning out to be such a letdown.

"I'll be back at the station," Kotohime announced to her squad of dead or nauseated policewomen. Without waiting for a response, she took to the skies.

-x-

* * *

><p>-11-<p>

_Gensokyo Police Headquarters  
>19:72<em>

Kotohime sat slumped at her desk, staring down at her scattered sheets of notes without really seeing them, trying to shake off her gloom about as ineffectively as she could the chill of night. It wasn't that she was worried the case was getting away from her, or that she wouldn't be able to rise to the challenge and solve it. It was just that, despite some exciting action scenes and shocking plot twists, the whole experience remained… well, unsatisfying.

Maybe some music would cheer her up. The police chief reached over to flip a button on portable set resting on the edge of her desk. Some catchy synthesized tunes filled the air, the sort that Akyuu always recommended. Kotohime had a few seconds to enjoy the sounds until-

"Hellllooooo there, chicks and children!"

-she knew that her mood would only be getting worse.

"This is Aya Shameimaru – CAAAAAWWWWW! – comin' at you loud and proud from Bunbunmaru News Radio, live with a breaking bulletin!" The sound of shuffling paper escaped through the set's speakers, which the princess found preferable to the over-enthusiastic female announcer. "My flea-bitten girl on the scene reports that the ostentatious abode of Gensokyo's most notorious blood-sucking brat has just been, to use the vernacular, _wrecked_. Explosions, fires, flying cars, you name it, and word is that the resident librarian has been forcibly evicted by a kidnapper who remains at large. Now unless you've been living at the bottom of a pond – talkin' to you, kappa! – you've no doubt noticed that this is barely news for today. We've had a shootout at a food bank, a comet dropped on a downtown tavern, and a running battle on the city streets. Yet when asked about this spree of deadly crimes, a police representative admitted that they have _no _arrests, _no_ suspect, _no _clue! So what, I ask you, are the police _doing?!_"

The burst of magical energy reduced the radio to a scorch mark and a few half-melted screws, appreciably decreasing the amount of clutter on Kotohime's desk. "Thinking twice about allowing a free press," she grumbled.

Stupid tengu. The worst part was that the bird brains were out of her jurisdiction, technically, so the best she could do would be to start up a state-run news agency and try to drown out their disingenuous assertions. Not that she had the time to sit around talking into a microphone all day. Maybe Mystia? Counter birds with birds? Or-

"Chief?"

Kotohime swiveled in her seat, blinking out of her planning to give the avian in question a brief smile. "Officer Lorelei. Thinking of branching out into journalism?"

"Uh, no, chief." Mystia eyed the wreckage on the princess' desk, but declined to comment. "I was actually wanting to talk to you about the case."

"Hmm? Oh, right." Kotohime shuffled some papers around, uncovering the sheet she'd been working on earlier. Aside from a sketch of herself in a cowboy hat riding a dinosaur, she wasn't making progress. "I'm making progress," she said confidently. "There's a pattern – oh, that's right, I already told you."

"But what about a culprit?" the night sparrow asked.

"They're 'suspects' until we determine guilt," Kotohime corrected gently. "Anyway, I already know who's behind everything."

"_What?"_ Mystia leaned forward suddenly, gripping the edge of Kotohime's desk with her talons. "_How?"_ she demanded, her golden eyes boring into the police chief's.

Kotohime met the bird-woman's stare with a serene smile. "I'm a genius? Police instincts honed by years of experience? Call it a hunch?"

"Wait, did you manage to find Yukari?" asked Mystia, clearly suspicious.

The police chief shrugged carelessly. "Someday I'll find that house of hers, but not today. Farthest I got was my favorite tavern before someone dropped a rock on it." Kotohime's mind filled with images of fried chicken and fish fillets she'd never eat again, which reminded her that _she'd never gotten lunch_. Hell, she'd skipped dinner, too! And she'd spent all day flying around and battling ninja bikers running on nothing but a bit of Minoriko Aki. Wasn't that a Buddhist thing? Sustenance from the air or something like that? Was it possible to learn high-level Buddhist magic by accident during unrelated police work? That could imply a connection between the Buddha and law enforcement-

Mystia straightened up, rubbing at her forehead. "I guess I don't have a mind like yours yet," she sighed, "I don't see how anything fits together."

"Eh, give it time." Kotohime leaned back in her chair, making a mental note to visit the Myouren Temple to ask how to turn off that not-eating thing. Just because she could go without food didn't mean she preferred to, and Kotohime certainly didn't want to worry about gaining weight by eating normally on top of gleaning sustenance from the air she breathed. "Hey, weren't you supposed to visit Reimu at some point?" she remembered.

"Oh, right." The night sparrow colored slightly. "Uh, I took Cirno with me, but we ran into those three fairies along the way, so I ended up spending an hour chasing them all around-"

Of course. "No worries," Gensokyo's princess said breezily. "Something for tomorrow, then."

"Tomorrow?"

"It's like bedtime o'clock," Kotohime pointed out. "We've got nothing to worry about for the rest of the evening. See," she explained, "an honest worker would have the discipline and dedication to see a task through, even if it meant staying up late. But since criminals are by definition dishonest, they'd rather slack off and go to bed early than finish their illegal endeavors."

"I see," said Mystia unconvincingly. "But wouldn't it be wise to try to catch up with those criminals while they're lazing about?"

"Nah, it's like how back in the old days you'd put a war on hold 'cause of bad weather. It's night, they're tired, we're tired, so we call a truce 'till morning." Kotohime reached under her desk, withdrawing a pillow and thick fuzzy blanket. It'd be nice to be able to run home for bed, but given how she expected the next day to go, she may as well camp out at the office.

"So we should just take the rest of the evening off?" asked Mystia.

Kotohime grinned at her. "Whaddya mean 'we?' You're nocturnal, right? So guess who gets to take watch?"

-x-

* * *

><p>-12-<p>

_Dawn of the Final Day  
>-24 Hours Remain-<em>

"Chief!"

Kotohime blinked, once, and lifted her head from the pillow laid atop her desk, the dim grey light coming in through the room's window indicating that it was now just past dawn. Weird. She couldn't even remember falling asleep, it was like she'd put her head down and bam-

"We've got a problem," her little intercom continued. "It's-"

"Freezing in here," Kotohime muttered, pulling her blanket back over her shoulders. She was surprised to see her breath clouding in the air. Then she realized something else and took a second look at the device that was talking to her. "Wait a minute, what are you doing on the main desk, Mystia?"

"That's the problem!" said the tiny speaker. "Wriggle's sick!"

More like dead, Kotohime decided after hurrying down to the main floor of the station. Officer Nightbug was belly-up on the floor beside her chair at the department's coordination and communication desk, her face twisted into an expression of mild annoyance, her arms and legs curled like she was clinging to the underside of an invisible tree branch. Hopefully she was just hibernating or something… with her eyes wide open, sure.

"I bet it's the cold," said a teary-eyed and blotchy-faced Cirno. "Bugs don't like cold much," she explained, speaking from experience.

"Why _is_ it so cold, anyway?" asked Gensokyo's police chief irritably. All that money spent on the building's climate control, and here she was watching her breath fog indoors.

"The temperature kept dropping all night, and doesn't look like it's going to turn around now that the sun's up," said Mystia. She slumped against a wall, her grey eyes sunken and exhausted. Oh, right, Kotohime had put her through two night shifts in a row while keeping her working all day. Whoopsie.

"And Letty said something about winter coming soon," Cirno said. "Also, the end of the world," the ice fairy added after a moment's recollection.

Kotohime continued to stare down at Wriggle, biting her lip thoughtfully and resisting the urge to poke the firefly youkai with her jitte. "Tricky. Now we have to try and solve the case with our mission control taken out."

"Oh, we goin' somewhere?" Deputy Mokou was sauntering onto the scene, jacket open and midriff bared despite the temperature, a concerned-looking Kaguya and a Rumia-looking Rumia in tow.

"Yeah, it's time to wrap up this case," Kotohime nodded. "May as well save Gensokyo at the same time, or at least before lunch-"

"Ah, chief," Kaguya said, clearly reluctant to interrupt. "I never got the chance to tell you, but yesterday I did some thinking, and I believe that our culprit-"

"Relax, princess, we're going straight to the Hakurei Shrine," said Kotohime with a winsome smile.

"Oh! Well." The lunar princess smoothed out her sable uniform. "I see you didn't need my assistance after all."

"Reimu's known Marisa longer than anyone," Kotohime explained, noting the extremely interested look on Mystia's face that had managed to burn through her sleep deprivation. "So in the event that Reimu was feeling jealously possessive of her friend, that gives her a motive to snatch Kirisame, as well as go after any rivals. Reimu also has the border-based powers that would let her smuggle in contraband such as weapons or motorcycles, and as a shrine maiden has the godly contacts that would let her set up some of the distractions we've been dealing with. She's our most likely suspect."

"Is that so?" asked Rumia, obviously unconvinced.

"Well, it makes the most sense with the clues we've been given," replied Kotohime with an easy shrug. "Yukari's got the power and mindset to pull something like this, but that wouldn't explain the Kirisame connection-with-a_-k_. So, Reimu."

"It just doesn't sound like the Reimu I know," the darkness youkai went on.

"Maybe we didn't know the real Reimu after all," Mystia added darkly, before tilting her head towards the garage, her winged hat tipping slightly. "Do we want to take the cars-"

"Silly Mystia, both our cruisers got wrecked over the course of last night's adventure, and were left on the Scarlet Devil Mansion's front lawn like so much garbage." Kotohime's smile got a little wider. "We'll fly, of course."

Which was just as well. With Mystia's eye twitching like that, she didn't need to be behind the wheel.

-x-

* * *

><p>-13-<p>

_En route to the Hakurei Shrine  
>51:29<em>

Technically the sun was up, but it wasn't doing anyone much good. A layer of dark, ominous even, clouds had settled over Gensokyo like… drat she'd really been overusing the shroud metaphor, Kotohime noted unhappily.

The princess led her five policewomen in flight just over the city streets, now turned to white canyons by the layer of snow coating just about every surface. Traffic had come to a standstill, a series of lumps below denoting where a vehicle had been buried by the wintry precipitation. No pedestrians trudged along the sidewalks, and for good reason – although the snow had eased back to a few scattered flurries, the bone-numbing chill remained. More than that, the dark sky above created an instinctive desire to stay indoors and put your head down. There was a sliver of faint daylight visible on the horizon, but it somehow only served to illuminate how _dark_ the clouds above were.

Hey, black sky, white lands below. Kinda yin-yang-ish? That would have been a useful clue if Kotohime hadn't figured things out already.

No one spoke as they flew in formation from the city to the suburbs to the back roads leading to the Hakurei Shrine. It wasn't because they were going too fast to communicate without shouting, it was that there was nothing to say. They all knew where they were going and who they were up against, and they knew they'd better save their energy for the battle ahead.

Something was missing, though… ah. There was nothing to shoot at. Normally a flight over Gensokyo involved blasting through waves of fairies, but on this dark, chill morning there was nothing else in the sky. Even simple-minded sprites and pixies had picked up the mood that had settled over the land like a dammit.

And of course the ninja were all dead. Kotohime sighed with regret, the steam of her breath torn away by the speed of her passage. She really needed to learn to pace herself when it came to cutting down shadowy assassins. If she wasn't careful she'd end up wiping out the whole species. Maybe she should set up a ninja preserve, try and breed some in captivity.

After this whole "save the world" thing was over, anyway.

-x-

* * *

><p>-14-<p>

_The Hakurei Shrine  
>513:8<em>

Kotohime always considered the Hakurei Shrine to be a tranquil place, perhaps due to the balanced soul of its shrine maiden, perhaps because that shrine maiden would beat the stuffing out of anyone who tried to disturb that tranquility. But this morning the place felt empty, as dead as the ice-covered trees surrounding it.

She touched down under the big red torii like it was a finish line, the rest of her team landing in short order. The police chief held up her hand and motioned for silence, and the six policewomen cautiously advanced onto the snow-dusted courtyard, alert for any signs of danger. No warm lights greeted them, and Gensokyo's princess instinctively knew Reimu wasn't around.

Which wasn't to say that nobody else was. Something stirred in the shadows beyond the shrine's open front door, stepping out into the paltry daylight to become a petite figure who would look pretty childish were it not for the twisted horns extending horizontally out from her bushy ginger hair.

"Oh, you guys," said Suika Ibuki, the Hakurei Shrine's parttime resident oni. She yawned hugely and stretched her deceptively slender arms, the short length of heavy chain shackled to her wrist jangling at the motion. As skinny as she was, and despite how exposed her sleeveless vest left her, Suika didn't seem bothered by the cold – it was an open question whether this was due to her robust physiology, or the purple gourd left carelessly on the floor past the shrine's threshold.

"Miss Ibuki," Kotohime replied with a brief smile. "Is the shrine's maiden around? She has some questions to answer."

"Around, yeah, but she doesn't feel like talking." Suika nudged her gourd out of sight with her sandaled foot and regarded the police officer with a neutral expression on her face. And something was terribly wrong, Kotohime realized. Suika's brandy-brown eyes were sharp and clear, her face was the same tone of the rest of her body rather than flushed from the cold or…

Suika Ibuki looked _sober_.

The princess cleared her throat, trying to keep her composure. "Be that as it may, I still intend to talk to her. Please step aside so-"

The gangly little oni interrupted by holding up a finger. "One, Reimu's not in the shrine." She clomped down the front steps, strode out into the courtyard, and turned, her extended finger now pointing over the shrine's roof… and what was rising above it.

For a brief moment Kotohime thought the moon was rising that early in the day, except there were clouds behind it, and the color was off, and above all else it was too big. Gensokyo's police force could only watch in open-mouthed awe as a massive spherical construct drifted into the sky behind the Hakurei Shrine. Parts of it were gunmetal grey, others a dull sable, and its surface was cut by a winding trench equidistant between two discolored depressions in the hull-

It was a giant metal yin-yang.

Kotohime opened and shut her mouth, struggling to find words. "I honestly did not see that coming," she managed.

"Guess that explains where the shrine's donations went," Mystia said meekly.

"It's a space station," breathed Kaguya, evidently impressed. "My goodness, I haven't seen one of those in some time."

"'s not in space," Mokou pointed out.

"'Extremely low-orbit station' doesn't have quite the same ring to it, though," Kotohime noted. Then she remembered who had been talking earlier. "Oh hey, what was your second point?" she asked Suika.

"Well, Reimu doesn't want any distractions, so I'm supposed to stop you," the oni said matter-of-factly.

Figures. The Aki Sisters probably counted as one encounter, then Tenshi, the ninja biker gang… it obviously wasn't time to battle Reimu just yet, so a scrap with Suika made sense. On the other hand, by Kotohime's reckoning it was also too early to be fighting Reimu's lieutenant. She resolved to ration her explosives.

Instead Gensokyo's police chief nodded at her officers, who spread out to either side of her, half-encircling the oni standing in the middle of the courtyard. Mokou flexed her neck as a few cinders rose into the air from behind her shoulders, Cirno folded her arms, her heavy blue eyebrows furrowed in anticipation of battle, and Rumia… tried her best, bless her, but holding her arms straight out from her sides wasn't particularly threatening.

Not that Suika seemed to be in any way threatened by the mixture of immortals and badass youkai confronting her. Well, this was going to be interesting.

"Impeding a legal investigation, stand aside or face the consequences, etcetera," Kotohime said for formality's sake.

The oni responded with a somewhat melancholy grin. "What, and miss my chance for one last battle before the end of Gensokyo? I don't think so."

Suika shifted into a low crouch with her legs planted wide, her blue skirt sweeping up flurries of snowflakes, then slowly lifted her leg before stomping like a sumo wrestler. The shockwave that followed could probably be heard across Gensokyo. And then she began to grow.

"Oh, right, manipulation of density," Kotohime remembered. Her fellow officers nervously backed away a few paces before turning to run, and the princess elected to follow. It was either that or be forced to look up a skirt the size of a circus tent.

The sextet rallied under the shrine's torii as Suika reached her desired size. The oni bestrode the clearing like a colossus, the long, lean muscles on her arms and legs like slabs of granite, her limbs like bundles of tree trunks, her horns the gnarled roots of mountains. Her face had lost its childish cheeks and eyes – Suika's jaw had thickened into a wide, heavy maw, while her eyes shone like a pair of harvest moons out from under a fringe of ginger the size of a waterfall. The big red bow on the back of her head looked absurdly out of place.

The giant oni shifted slightly, crouching a bit as that huge demonic head tilted down to leer at her opponents, clouds steaming from her nostrils in the biting cold.

"Don't suppose anyone brought their bazooka?" asked Kotohime hopefully.

"How are we supposed to fight that?" Rumia inquired like a child asking for help with homework.

"Good question." There wasn't enough sunlight to hold up her jitte and see if any parts of the giantess lit up. Instead Gensokyo's chief of police reached down a sleeve and withdrew a lens attached to a mechanical doodad she set on her temple like a futuristic eyepatch. With a few button presses, she caused the high-tech monocle to dance with text and graphics as she slowly panned her gaze over Suika's enormous form. "Well, I'm not reading any obvious weak points, though her cholesterol is looking pretty good," Kotohime announced.

"Chief?" quavered Mystia. "What's our strategy?"

"The same strategy Gensokyans use to solve any problem," her commander replied, before sucking in a deep breath. "FIRE!"

Mokou, annoyingly, beat her to the punch, but then again Kotohime figured the girl had been waiting for an excuse to ignite. Her lead lasted only a split-second, and Officer Fujiwara's bolts of flame were soon joined by Kotohime's stylishly-purple projectiles, Kaguya's multicolored barrage, icy shards from Cirno, and less characterful danmaku from Rumia and Mystia. She really needed to have a talk to them, Kotohime noted even while the spat magical death from her outstretched palms. Maybe some kind of shadowbolts for Rumia, and for Lorelei… musical notes? Too silly. Maybe Mystia could use some sort of invisible, air-rippling, sonic danmaku-

Something rumbled above them, perhaps thunder, perhaps a guffaw, and then a hand the width of a barn sliced through the cloud of explosions as Suika attempted to swat them aside. Mystia squawked and took wing, Mokou rocketed back on a column of smoke and flame, and Kotohime did a neat backflip. When she landed she saw Rumia and Cirno tumbling head over heels simply from the displaced air.

Which left- "Where's Kaguya?" she asked.

The smoke hanging over the shrine's courtyard cleared, revealing Suika again, who was flicking her open hand as if to dislodge something. A dark shape plummeted from the oni's palm, hitting the ground with a _crump_ and a burst of snowflakes.

A few seconds later, Kaguya shakily pushed herself out of her crater and flew over to join the others. "How embarrassing," she said with a weak laugh. "I think that might have killed me."

"That's what soft living does to ya," Mokou harrumphed, not looking away from their foe. "Time to bust out the spell cards?" she asked Kotohime.

"I don't think they'd do much good," Mystia gulped. "Only a miracle could save us now."

Kotohime snapped her head to glare at the night sparrow. "_Don't even_ _say-_"

She was interrupted by a synthesized fanfare blaring from the tiny speaker on her scanner, followed shortly by the roar of jet engines. Suika had just enough time to turn before catching a pair of giant fists in the face, sending the oni reeling.

A second giant had entered the clearing, a metal humanoid of gold and black and red, its eyes shining like the hidden sun, a pair of enormous aircraft-like wings extending from its shoulders. The ground shook when it landed after performing its attack, then the – yes, it was clearly a mecha – struck a heroic battle pose.

Rumia and Cirno looked at each other and gasped in delight. "Hisoutensoku!"

"No!" shouted Kotohime, shaking a fist at the giant fighting robot. "Absolutely not! This will _not_ stand!"

The scanner over her right eye flickered with static before resolving into the transparent portrait of a green-haired girl in a blue-and-white shrine maiden's outfit, a blue visor over her eyes and a manic grin on her face. "Heya, chief!" said Sanae Kochiya cheerily. "I was in the neighborhood, and it looked like you could use a hand. Or more accurately... a rocket fist!"

The robot braced one outstretched arm with the other, then with a flare of light its right forearm detached in a burst of flames to streak across the sky. The giant metal fist socked Suika right in the jaw, further staggering the enormous little girl. On Kotohime's visor, Sanae's cocky smile grew wider as the detachable fist jetted back to its socket.

"Iron fists of rage! Iron fists of justice! Show no mercy for their schemes!" chanted Cirno and Rumia.

Kotohime gave them a pained look. "Et tu, Cirno?"

"Don't worry about me, chief, I can hold her off," the image of the wind goddess miko mecha-jockey pain-in-the-ass assured Kotohime. "You just get up there and stop whatever Reimu's up to!"

"You sure you can handle it?" Mystia asked the side of Kotohime's head, raising her voice to try and be heard over the blaring music.

"Better believe it!" Sanae replied, flashing a thumbs-up that made a part of Kotohime die inside.

Suika had rallied, regarding the equally-large robot like a wary predator. Then a fierce grin split her fearsome face and she began limbering up, stretching her legs and cracking her knuckles in preparation for an epic battle.

"With the divine onbashira-"

A quartet of hexagonal pillars slammed down into the ground around the robot as if arriving from high orbit, before levitating into the air, turning ninety degrees, and taking position above and below its shoulders, bound by a glowing golden circle of energy.

"-and the Iron Rings of Moriya-"

A pair of enormous chakram sprang from the ground as though ejected from a toaster, easily caught by the robot. They were both improbable weapons and improbably thin, no doubt sharp enough to slice through even oni hide.

"-I won't lose!" finished Sanae. She let out a hoarse battle cry as she charged her machine forward, while Suika lowered her horns and did the same.

The ominous clouds above were buffeted by the shockwave of their collision. Suika dropped to one knee, then had to scuttle back as those big honkin' iron rings hissed through the air, nearly taking off the tip of one of the oni's horns. Suika answered the attack with a sudden uppercut that launched Hisoutensoku airborne, but before she could follow up on it, the mecha somehow swung itself around, aiming the four pillars arranged around its torso like cannons.

There was a blaze of eye-searing light, and then Suika was gouging a line through the surrounding forest, pushed around like the end of a mop by the column of energy spewing from the robot. Yet when the display was over the giant oni hopped to her feet, barely scuffed by the ordeal.

"I _hate_ feeling superfluous," Kotohime muttered bitterly. She snatched the scannermajig off the side of her head and threw it to the ground, causing a small, unsatisfying explosion.

Mystia shook her shoulder, pointing skyward. "But now's our chance, chief! The way to the fortress is wide open!"

"Because she _stole our boss fight_," the princess growled. She was mad, and she was annoyed she was mad. A princess ought to be cheerful and charming, and a police chief needed to be level-headed in the face of adversity. But she was still, technically, human.

At least she could vent her frustration on the one behind all this. "Let's go," she snapped, hurling herself skyward like a reverse lightning bolt of purple-and-red vengeance. She sensed more than saw her five officers following.

The yin-yang shaped airborne fortress hovered just beneath the cloud layers, filling up the sky like a rogue moon, but at least it didn't seem to be sporting any weapon batteries. Kotohime and her henchwomen were able to approach undisturbed, even while flashes of light and rumbling explosions marked Suika and Sanae's slugfest below.

The police chief reached down a sleeve and withdrew another monocular sensor lens, her augmented gaze sweeping over the metallic hull of the Hakurei Shrine's improbable superweapon. She held two fingers against her free temple. "Looks like there's an entrance in the equatorial trench," Kotohime reported.

After a moment's pause, Mystia came through over the squad frequency. "So why aren't we headed-"

"Because I don't intend to use the front door," Gensokyo's princess replied. Instead she led her squad up over the gently-curving sides of the floating sphere, to hover between its top and the cloud layer. The fortress was so massive that she couldn't even see snow-covered Gensokyo below.

Her sandals hit the surface with nary a _clank_, or even a crunch. Interesting. Despite winter's sudden onset, nothing had snowed on the yin-yang fortress. Had it recently launched from a subterranean hangar? Did the despised youkai of the underground have a hand in this? Did the question even matter?

Even before the rest of her squad had finished landing, Kotohime began rummaging through her favorite pouch.

"Gonna hope someone opens up a hatch for us" asked Mokou as she cupped a cigarette, struggling to keep it lit in the chill wind whipping through the assembled women's hair and clothing.

"Cirno, go ahead and make us an ice wall a good distance thataway, as thick as you can," ordered Kotohime. The ice fairy saluted and hurried off. "Any non-immortals or immortals who don't want to waste time regenerating ought to get behind it."

When her fellow officers saw the size of the satchel charges Kotohime pulled out, they practically tripped over each other in their haste to get to safety. She smiled and whistled a jaunty tune to herself as she set the explosives down and slowly flew over to join her crew, unspooling the detonator wire behind her like a trail of obscenely dangerous breadcrumbs.

Cirno was putting the finishing touches on the freestanding ice wall, which looked to be about one Rumia thick and four Rumias tall. "Perfect," Kotohime said with a smile. The ice fairy beamed back at her, then resumed huddling with the others, crouched with her wings pressed to the wall, head between her legs. Most of the others were in a similar position, though Mokou continued to stand, leaning against the barrier so she could smoke out of the wind.

"Noise," warned Kotohime. She lifted a pointer finger over the detonator-

There was a rustle of movement and a surprised grunt as Mokou was shoved out of cover-

A tremendous _BANG_ split the air, followed shortly by a clatter of metal on metal. Kotohime quickly hopped out of cover to examine her handiwork. The smoke from the explosion was already clearing, revealing a hole that, while big enough for two people to go through at a time, could have been bigger, Kotohime felt.

Officer Fujiwara pulled herself to her feet, glowering at Kaguya. "Nice try, but I barely felt the shockwave," she growled.

"How disappointing," the Lunarian princess replied with a charming smile. "But I must warn you, I don't intend to finish this mission having died more times than you."

"That's enough horseplay, girls," Kotohime said mildly. She checked her scanner again, but it didn't have much to say about the hole she'd made. The policewoman shrugged and tossed it aside, the resulting explosion barely registering after the big boom from a few seconds ago. She clapped her hands, cheered despite everything. Gunpowder just made life _better_. "Let's wrap this up, shall we?"

Without waiting for an answer, she hopped into the breach in the fortress' hull.

-x-

* * *

><p>-15-<p>

_Yin-Yang Sky Fortress  
>1569013 M3<em>

Kotohime landed in a low crouch, her robes settling around her like a superhero's cape, and straightened up slowly, taking in her surroundings. They were disappointing.

She wasn't sure what she'd been expecting to find inside a floating metal fortress shaped like a giant yin-yang orb, but its interior turned out to be more of the drab sheets of metal that made up the hull. Aside from the occasional etched yin-yang design on a bulkhead, that was it. No carpet. No potted plants. No tasteful nude sculptures. Nothing to look at. The whole place looked designed to be a backdrop for an exciting aerial battle, yet the utter lack of enemies to fight robbed Kotohime of such amusement. _And where were the fairies?_

Cirno touched down behind her, followed closely by the rest of the squad. "Where are we?" the ice fairy asked.

"And where do we go from here?" Mystia added. The pink-haired policewoman glanced down each identical stretch of the hallway they were standing in and shrugged.

Kotohime reached down a sleeve and drew another scanner, stuck it in place in front of her eye, and slowly panned her head around. "Well, I'm reading a large power source below us," she explained, looking through the metal floor beneath her to the vibrant splash of color that filled most of the lens. "Probably running whatever non-magical wizardry is keeping this puppy afloat. Buuuut…" She gestured down the hallway before her. "I'm also getting some anomalous stuff from that direction." She pulled the device off her head and carelessly tossed it over her shoulder to explode on the floor a few paces away.

Kaguya eyed the scorch mark but didn't comment on it. "Can you go into more detail?" she asked politely.

The police chief shrugged. "Doesn't matter. It's probably not an engine room, so I'm guessing it's what we're here for. And while I'm no Reimu, I'm pretty good at leaping to conclusions." She grinned. "_And_ leaping into action!"

She made good on her words, jumping into the air to fly down the boring metal hallway at a brisk pace, the others shortly taking up formation behind her. Good thing the place was built large enough to accommodate flying warrior-princesses who may have need to partake in a running aerial shootout. Even if there still weren't any stupid targets.

The whole yin-yang death ball felt pretty empty, really. Half-finished, a shell made to present an intimidating exterior while only a small part of the inside was actually used. It reminded Kotohime of… she frowned as the memory tried to wriggle out of her grasp, as if-

"So what's the plan?" called Mystia.

Kotohime's deep red eyes narrowed in annoyance. "Confront, accuse. Demand an explanation. Demand surrender. Pummel when the surrender is rejected."

"Couldn't we just skip to the pummel, then?" Cirno pointed out.

"Gotta follow procedure," the princess-policewoman explained. "Give the perp a chance to go quietly, even when you know she won't. Unless you want the yama to show up and give you a lecture." She glanced back at the ice fairy and flashed a brief smile. "Know what I mean, Lieutenant?"

The ice fairy made a face. "I think her special power is talking a lot."

Officer Lorelei looked nervous. "I've not met her, but I've heard stories-"

Kotohime's smile turned brittle, and she shifted her attention back to the hallway ahead. "You should have listened more closely," she said.

"Chief?"

"Oh, what's this?" Kotohime slowed as the hallway finally terminated in an open doorway, leading into a good-sized room. She let her sandaled feet kiss the ground and bid her girls do the same. The princess carefully stepped through the threshold into what turned out to be a wide, tall, well-lit chamber, roughly hexagonal in shape and free of any obstructions between the entrance and the far door.

"Chief?" repeated Mystia.

"C'mon in," Kotohime told her followers. The princess stood to the side and waved the others through. "Just waiting for…" she trailed off until Kaguya, bringing up the rear, entered the chamber. The split-second after the Lunarian princess was clear of the doorway, a heavy metal plate slammed down into place, a set of iron bars _snikt_ing over it.

"Called it," smiled Kotohime. "Prepare yourselves, ladies."

"Huh?" said Cirno.

"Well, this place is perfect for a battle, so…" the princess trailed off when she saw that the ice fairy was pointing towards the center of the chamber.

Four dark figures hovered in the air before Gensokyo's police force – "dark" in the sense that they were wrapped in unnatural shadows, giving them only slightly more definition than silhouettes.

"It looks like," Mystia said uncertainly and unnecessarily, "Marisa, Alice, Patchouli, and Nitori."

"Only all shadowy," Cirno added.

Kotohime scowled at the apparitions. Sure enough, three of the dark figures bore a witch hat, bulky backpack, and pajama-y robe that made their identities clear, and the one in the comparatively-normal dress looked just like the wooden doll found hanging from the roof of the Kirisame residence what felt like years ago.

Lame. First that obnoxious demigoddess cheated her out of a brawl with a fifty-foot oni, now here she was being presented with some cheap shadow clones to battle, like that made up for it.

"Could Reimu's miko abilities have done this," wondered Kaguya with the lack of concern granted by immortality, "or has she been expanding her repertoire?"

"Does it matter?" countered a bored-sounding Mokou. "Whatever they are, they're in the way."

The shadow ladies said nothing, but drifted apart, subtly shifting into battle stances.

Kotohime made up her mind. "Rumia, what can you do with these?"

"Huh?" The little darkness youkai turned to regard the princess, confusion in her blood-red eyes. "I guess I could bite them-"

"You can manipulate darkness, so I was wondering if you could get rid of them or something," explained Kotohime patiently.

"Oh. Uh…" Rumia flung her arms straight out from her sides, her adorable little face grimacing with exertion. The Nitori shade may have wobbled a little, but nothing else happened. "I don't think I'm strong enough," Rumia gasped a moment later, doubling over to try and catch her breath.

Well, nothing ventured… "Hold that thought," Kotohime declared.

Then she lunged forward to grab Rumia in both hands, lifted the little youkai to head height, grabbed the girl's ribbon with her teeth, and lobbed her deputy like a powder keg before Rumia had time to squeal in alarm.

She detonated like an inkwell exploding. Pitch-black shadows splattered across the chamber's floor and ceiling with a flash of anti-light and a blast of silence. For the onlookers, the combined effect was similar to that of a folding chair applied to the forehead followed by a bucket of slimy sushi being poured down the back of one's shirt.

Kotohime staggered to her feet, fumbling for her jitte with shaking hands, but when she lifted her head all she could see of her foes – or Rumia – was a roiling black cloud in the center of the room.

"What did you _do?!_" choked Mystia.

"Took off Rumia's amulet, unsealed her true power, used her as a grenade. Plan was for her to chow down on those shadow thingies," the princess explained.

"And it worked," said an unfamiliar woman's voice.

A thin line of color appeared in the dark fog, a strip of painfully intense red fabric that coiled and twisted like a snake suspended in mid-air, before curling into a perfect circle. Then a blonde head emerged from the bank of shadows, followed by the rest of an adult woman clad in a familiar, if resized, black vest and skirt over a white blouse. The figure straightened up as the virulently crimson ribbon settled above her like a mock halo, while the shadows behind her silently shifted to hang from her shoulders like a vaporous cloak.

The woman finally lifted her gaze to meet Kotohime's. She would have been beautiful, the princess wagered, had her features been a little less lean and hungry. Her cheekbones were sharp, her chin angular. Her teeth gleamed like freshly-sharpened knives, and her deep red eyes had a predator's unnerving focus. She was at once very familiar and disarmingly alien.

"I'm not sure how to thank you for freeing me, much less offering me that snack," Rumia's true form continued, her voice almost husky with anticipation. "I suppose I could slay you first and spare you the sight of what I'll do to the rest of Gensokyo. Or perhaps I should save you for last?"

Cirno and Mystia took several shocked steps away from this apparition, but Kotohime just rubbed the back of her neck in embarrassment. "Yeah, probably should've seen this coming," she sighed.

"M-m-m-" Officer Lorelei gulped. "Maybe Cirno and I can try to reason with her? After all, we've known Rumia the longest-"

"Deputy Rumia, atten-_shun!_" barked Kotohime.

Unbound Rumia merely smiled. There was a gust of something other than wind as the shadows behind her suddenly coalesced into a pair of void-black wings that snapped once before spreading to fill what felt like the whole horizon. The darkness youkai reached behind her, somehow producing what turned out to be an alarmingly large sword-shaped hole in the world. Its blade was absolutely, ultimately black, while its edges gleamed the icy blue of an event horizon. Despite the weapon being as tall as herself, Rumia Final gripped it one-handed without any apparent effort

Kotohime shrugged and gave Mystia a helpless look. "Well, if she's not going to follow _my_ orders, I think violence is the only solution."

Mokou shifted into a combat stance, her wings of fire _fwoomph_ing as they flared into incandescent existence. "We can take her," she said confidently.

It was tempting, oh-so-tempting. Nega-Rumia certainly promised a more interesting fight than a quartet of shadow clones, maybe even Reimu herself. Still, Kotohime didn't have time for such an admittedly-entertaining distraction. Heaving another sigh, she turned to give her girls orders.

"Team Nemesis?" Mokou didn't tear her eyes away from Rumia, while Kaguya saluted. "You two get to deal with this. Try to knock some sense into her if you can, or if nothing else keep her busy until I get to Reimu and stop whatever she's up to."

"After all you've done for me, you're leaving before I get the chance to show you my appreciation?" asked Rumia with exaggerated sorrow, her face twisted into a wicked grin.

"Cirno, Mystia, with me," Kotohime continued. "We've got a shrine maiden to chastise."

"You're just going to _skip_ her?" asked an incredulous Mystia, golden eyes wide with shock. "After complaining about not fighting Suika?"

"Not skipping, delegating," the police chief corrected.

"Ah…" Kaguya actually looked uncomfortable for once. "Your Highness, I'm not sure I like the look of that sword of hers, Hourai elixir or no."

"So don't let it hit you?" suggested Kotohime. "Or on second thought, see if you can jump on it when she swings at you so you can run up the blade and get her right in the head!" The princess reconsidered. "Wait, why am I the only one on the force with a melee weapon?"

"Moonbitch has that branch," Mokou pointed out. Her attention was still locked on her opponent, and the phoenix warrior restlessly paced back and forth, waiting for the moment to strike.

"There ya go. Have fun, you two." Kotohime gave the two other immortals and a somewhat puzzled Mega Ultra Rumia a cheery little wave before nodding at her two other teammates. "C'mon girls, we out."

She led Cirno and Mystia around the three would-be combatants to inspect the metal door on the far side of the arena. The princess gave the thing a nudge and was surprised when it swung back slightly. "Wasn't even locked!" she announced, before kicking the door wide. Kotohime motioned Cirno and Mystia through, then looked back at who she was leaving behind. "Aren't you supposed to be fighting?" she accused the two-immortals and her former underling.

Kaguya and Rumia exchanged a puzzled look, at which point Mokou bathed both of them in a roaring firestorm. The darkness youkai shrieked like air escaping through a hull breach and blindly swung her immense sword, while Kaguya flew out of the conflagration with her hair and clothes aflame.

"Those two," chuckled Kotohime. "Have fun you kids. Now, you other kids, follow," she reminded Cirno and Mystia before taking to the air again.

The three remaining members of Gensokyo's police force left the raging fight behind, coasting down empty halls without exchanging any words. Kotohime had nothing to say, Cirno looked confused but stubbornly tagged along, and Mystia felt like she was pointedly _not_ saying anything. Once they'd outpaced the echoes of screams and explosions they briefly flew in silence, but then Kotohime picked up some faint music coming from somewhere, distant pipe organs, low and moody. Culturally inappropriate, but thematically appealing.

In enough time for Kotohime to grow bored but not enough time for her to do something about it, they rounded one last corner and there they were. Kotohime brought her group to a halt and stared up at the oversized set of dark mahogany doors, expertly carved to create a, yes, yin-yang emblem where the two doors met. They gave off a definite "no going back" feel, denoting the passageway as one to an undoubtedly final confrontation.

The princess looked up and down the portal. There didn't seem to be any obvious way of opening it. "Well, looks like this is it."

"Looks like it," agreed Mystia with an audible gulp. Hesitancy notwithstanding, the night sparrow leaned in to more closely inspect the doors. "I guess the yin-yang's a lock? So there's a key somewhere? Maybe we need to solve a puzzle, or-"

"I've got a key," stated Kotohime as she reached into her pack once more.

"Oh? You picked one up earl- oh." Mystia took some hurried steps back as Kotohime placed the satchel charge against the portal. Kotohime had to suppress a grin at her officer's badly-concealed annoyance, before focusing on unraveling more detonator wire.

"That's not a key," Cirno pointed out flatly.

"You're exactly right," Kotohime said with a nod. "Each key is usually designed for a particular lock. _This_ can open just about any lock." She led the others around that last bend in the hallway triggering her payload.

The metal halls really amplified the sound of the explosion, Kotohime noted.

She was striding around the corner before the echoes had faded, so the thick smoke was still coiling in the hole where the door used to be. Explosives. Was there any problem they _couldn't_ solve?

"Um," Mystia spoke up, "I hope you're not expecting us to go in like we did at the food bank, none of us brought our gear-"

"That won't be necessary," the police chief said with a wave of her hand. "I'll take it from here."

Cirno immediately made a pouty face, but Mystia only nodded. "I see. Need to take care of this personally?"

"Something like that, yeah. I've got words to say, with beatings possibly to follow."

"We'll, uh, watch your back, then" the night sparrow offered. "Keep anyone else from interfering."

Kotohime smiled. "Yes, keep the teeming hordes of enemies we passed from getting underfoot. In all seriousness, you might as well regroup with the hourais and escape the fortress. It'll probably try to explode once I deal with Reimu, so you can watch the fireworks."

Mystia nodded again, but Cirno crossed her arms, scowling. "So why did you bring us along in the first place?"

Kotohime dropped to one knee, put a hand on the ice fairy's shoulder, and whispered "Keep this to yourself, but I thought Mystia could use the exercise. She's getting kinda chunky."

Cirno giggled, and Kotohime spun her around and swatted the girl's backside half-heartedly. "Now get going."

Mystia actually saluted. "Right, chief. C'mon, Cirno."

The two took flight and began traveling back the way they'd come. Kotohime smiled as she returned Cirno's wave, trying to shake the feeling that they were saying good-bye. Marshalling her confidence, she turned and strode fearlessly through the ruined doorway into-

"Ouch. Garish," the police chief remarked with a wince.

It looked to be a throne room of some sort, characterized by an unnecessarily large, empty space dominating the chamber's center, ringed with a few columns close to the walls that helped support the vaulted ceiling placed high enough overhead to make an airborne battle feasible. A short, wide flight of steps culminated in a dais topped with a regal-looking swivel chair currently sitting with its back to the door. Behind that was an enormous round window with a view of the stormy winter sky outside, the iron latticework making the shape of a – of course – yin-yang.

And the colors _hurt_. The floors were tiled in a gaudy checkerboard pattern, and the white-marbled columns clashed badly with the onyx-paneled walls. The flight of stairs alternated between the two colors, and… ugh.

She'd walked in here expecting to use her badge, but now Kotohime felt ready to use her degree in interior decorating.

Disembodied male and female vocalists began singing along with the pipe organs, their words faint and indecipherable to Kotohime, but definitely complementing the ambient music. As if on cue, the throne slowly rotated, revealing the person presumably behind all of the trouble of the past day or so.

Reimu Hakurei was slouched in her seat, hands loosely cupping the ends of the armrests without gripping them, her head slumped forward so that her chin rested on her collarbone., the sort of poor posture that would cause health problems if continued for a few weeks, though that wouldn't be a problem if the apocalyptic warnings were true. Worse, she matched the room's décor – Reimu wore her trademark not-quite-a-shrine-maiden outfit, but her vest, dress and bow had darkened from a cheery red to a matte black, making her white detached sleeves stand out all the more. Even her hair and face looked dull and washed-out, her usually vibrant ruby eyes nearly matching the stormclouds outside the window in hue and luster.

She stirred at the sight of Kotohime, straightening up somewhat from her slouch. "So," Reimu said with a brittle smile, her once-cheerful features looking almost empty, "it's you."

"It's me," agreed Kotohime with a somber nod. "I suppose it's fitting. Only the one woman able to subdue the mighty Reimu would be capable of stopping her from doing… whatever it is you're trying to do."

The shrine maiden's smile turned contemptuous. "The great detective, still in the dark at the very end?" she taunted.

"Well, I've got the general gist of it," Kotohime shrugged. "You're the one behind the kidnappings because of jealousy issues, I guess."

"Not jealousy, love," Reimu corrected without anger. The shrine maiden gestured to a section of wall near her throne, where hidden panels rotated to reveal a quartet of clear tubes filled with an unidentifiable liquid and four identifiable females – Alice Margatroid, Nitori Kawashiro (sans backpack), Patchouli Knowledge, and Marisa Kirisame (sans hat), all floating in some alchemical preservative. They looked peaceful enough, as though they were sleeping. In pickle jars.

"Marisa's mine," Reimu continued dispassionately. "She always has been."

"You don't need to convince _me_," Kotohime replied, hands out. "I've seen the way your eyes light up just before she makes an entrance. I mean literally light up, it's actually kind of unsettling. But that doesn't quite explain the non-Marisa captives."

"Also love," answered the rogue miko. "Marisa cares for them. I brought them along, so that even if Marisa does not love me, she will still be with those she does, at the end."

"Guess that works," nodded Kotohime. "Still doesn't explain… a lot of stuff, really. The guns. The ninja biker gang. How exactly you got the Akis and Tenshi to work as your goons." She paused, giving the other woman a chance to speak up, but Reimu just stared dispassionately at her accuser while the choir continued chanting in the background to fill the silence. Kotohime shrugged. "Guess it doesn't matter, really. The biggie is still motive. I mean for the whole 'end of the world' thing."

"I'm tired," Reimu said quietly, her eyes half-lidded. "I'm tired of the endless conflicts. The Incidents that sweep through the land with depressing regularity. I'm tired of being the guardian of the ingrates who squat in this backwater hole. I'm tired of my sacrifices, my unwanted victories, being ignored."

"Are you now?" replied Kotohime. "You always seemed pretty content with your life to me."

"A façade, a mask I was forced to wear." Reimu's head tilted forward, the fringe of her bangs hanging. "I have no need for it now. Soon Gensokyo will be destroyed, and we will all be free."

"Liberty through annihilation," summarized the policewoman, arching a dubious eyebrow. "So does this floating death base have some sort of doom ray?"

"Actually, it was the hellraven who gave me the idea," Reimu admitted. She gestured at a patch of floor in a corner, which opened into a trapdoor to admit a platform rising from the depths, bearing-

"Hello!" said a cheerful voice.

A woman was standing on the platform, a perky girl with bright green hair and a brighter smile, wearing a frilly white maid's apron and headband over a blue dress. She'd been very securely tied to something.

Kotohime heaved a sigh and gave Reimu a weary glance. "Okay, what can _this_ maid do?"

"Why, just about everything!" the green-haired girl quickly responded. "I'm programmed in over five hundred forms of domestic services, including housecleaning, cooking-"

"Programmed, eh? You're a robot?" asked Kotohime.

"That's right! My name's Ruukoto," the girl said. "I'd bow, but these ropes are quite tight."

"So your robo-maid is going to clean Gensokyo to death," Kotohime summarized. "Gotta say, Reimu, as doomsday plans go-"

"The fact that my colleague is nuclear-powered may be pertinent," a second, older woman's voice suggested, her tone formal. Kotohime swept her gaze across the room, searching for the speaker. "Your pardon, I'm in front of you, behind Ruukoto."

The princess took a few cautious steps to the side and noticed what the robot maid was bound to – a five-foot-tall missile with its nose and fins painted a cheery red. Someone had also added a simple crescent-shaped smile and two eyes to the warhead, which flashed as the device talked.

"I am Mimi-Chan, a JC-9x class Intercontinental Ballistic Missile-"

"Who talks?" Kotohime interrupted, honestly surprised.

"Indeed. I suppose you could say I'm a smart bomb, except I'm self-propelled so it wouldn't be quite accurate." One of the eyes went dark in a sort of wink.

Gensokyo's police chief faced the sudden, horrifying question of whether the countless explosives she'd so callously expended over the years could have just as easily struck up a conversation with her, had they only the mouths to do so.

"Now," Mimi-chan continued, heedless of Kotohime's inner turmoil, "my warhead has an estimated 900 kiloton yield, which I'm sorry to say should be more enough to destroy Gensokyo. However, Mistress Reimu is nothing if not through, and has coupled me with Ruukoto in hopes that my reaction will be enhanced by her own fusion power cores going supercritical as I detonate."

"I'm helping!" said Ruukoto cheerfully.

"The end will be quick, at least," mused Reimu. "A mercy, really, and more than this wretched place deserves."

Kotohime scowled at her, then turned her glare on the talking warhead. "And you're okay with going along with this?"

"I'm sorry, but I am programmed to obey," responded Mimi-Chan.

Kotohime rubbed her chin, trying to remember if her self-administered demolition training had included anything on nuclear weapons. "Where did you find these guys, anyway?" she asked Reimu.

"You may not remember," the renegade shrine maiden said. "There was a contest to explore some ruins, a tournament of sorts. I won, and met two surprising women from another world. They gave me Ruukoto as my prize, while the missile I 'acquired' from Marisa." Her mouth quirked in amusement at the thought of robbing Gensokyo's most notorious thief.

"Mmm-_hmm_," Kotohime said with a nod. That clinched it. She clapped her hands together. "Well, I think I've heard everything I need to hear."

"Oh?" A bitter smile twisted Reimu's otherwise attractive features. "Do you tire of these games as well? Are you ready for it to all end? Or do you think you can stop me?"

"No, I'm saying that I know you're not Reimu."

A nearly visible silence rippled through the air.

"Is that what you think?" the other woman said in a near-whisper, her gaze locked with Kotohime's.

The police chief nodded. "I _know_ it." The music picked up again, the chorus and pipe organs now accompanied by a strings section playing an urgent melody punctuated by tolling bells. Classy!

"You talk about a 'façade,' about disguising your true feelings," Kotohime continued. "Reimu doesn't do that, it's one of her more interesting qualities. She doesn't hide her opinions behind social niceties or think any differently from what she says. She's honest, if sometimes a bit rude. That's why oni like her. No, there's never been any indication she was getting tired of being the Hakurei Shrine Maiden, or riding out every now and then to crack some skulls. A pretty mellow person, our Reimu, but she's willing to get her hands dirty. I guess the fact that she makes new friends in the process makes it all worth it." The princess shifted on her feet, trying to bury an unbecoming glimmer of jealousy. "Not sure how she does it..."

The false Reimu sank back in her throne. "So who am I then?" she challenged. "A doppelganger, evil twin, disguised fiend, what?"

"Those are all appealing choices," Kotohime admitted. "I'd get a challenging boss fight and get to rescue the real Reimu afterward, really show her up. Sounds fun. _Suspiciously_ fun."

"What are you implying?"

"I'm not _implying_, I'm _saying_." Kotohime flung an accusingly pointing finger at the other woman. "You're just a figment of my imagination."

The music abruptly cut off just when it was getting good. The false Reimu froze in mid-snarl, her yellow eyes blinking with surprise. "What?"

"This isn't real. None of it. This is all an illusion, or a dream, or some such nonsense, and I've played along for long enough." Kotohime folded her arms and looked up at the ceiling, tapping her foot impatiently. "So let's hurry it up, I've got places to be today."

And with a sound that was part tearing metal, part wails of the damned, reality crumbled.

-x-

* * *

><p>-16-<p>

_A Pretty Boring Tesseract  
>66x10^-√13 pm<em>

The scene in the throne room froze, then shattered like a stain glass window during a cathedral shootout, the shards of the stand-off against the false Reimu tumbling down to disappear into the endless black void Kotohime found herself standing in. The unearthly screech of the world exploding faded to a distorted echo.

Kotohime massaged a temple, trying to shake off the lingering tinnitus. That had to have been the second loudest collapse of reality she'd experienced. "So," she said to no one in particular, glancing about expectantly, "what's next?"

There was a flicker, a brief glimpse of something like a purplish-tinged starry sky, and then not-Reimu was standing in front of her, peeved. "That's a good question," she growled. "Sis?"

Her copper senses tingled, and Kotohime turned to face the girl who had appeared behind her. "You," said Mystia, "are a real bother, you know that?"

"Only to evildoers," Kotohime countered brightly. "Now disguises off, please, let's introduce ourselves like proper ladies. I'll go first – Kotohime, princess, policewoman, and would-be captive fully prepared to kick some asses until I get answers." She bowed.

Not-Reimu glowered with her yellow eyes, which were the only part of her that didn't ripple like a mirage before reforming into a new figure. In the shrine maiden's place was – wonderful, yet another maid. She almost looked like one of Kotohime's old friends, with her short yellow hair that matched her eyes, and navy blue dress with pale pink aprons and frills. But there was something a bit off about her face: round cheeks, a button nose, all the individual ingredients for cuteness that when combined nevertheless made something that fell just short of human.

"Mugetsu," she said, folding her arms in a way that made Kotohime miss a certain ice fairy.

The princess nodded in acknowledgment, then turned to the other girl, who looked almost identical to Mugetsu, save for her longer hair and different outfit. She wore a pink and white dress under a red vest, along with a red bow in her hair. Another key difference became apparent when she unfurled a pair of white feathered wings that flapped once as she floated next to her accomplice.

"Gengetsu," the girl almost grudgingly admitted, those now-familiar yellow eyes narrowed as she studied Kotohime.

"Interesting…" The princess tapped the side of her jaw as she thought out loud. "I'd guess siblings, but I've never heard of one inheriting wings when the other didn't. So were you mass-produced somewhere and Gen's a more advanced model?"

"Hey!" Mugetsu started.

"We're sisters," Gengetsu stolidly stated.

"Or maybe an industrial accident cost Mu her wings?" continued Kotohime. "Tragic, but I'm sure something could be done. I know some people back home that could hook you up with some crystally prosthetics… or at least I'm _assuming_ her wings aren't biological, but with that girl there's really no telling," she admitted. "I don't know the whole story, and frankly I'm not sure I want to…" she trailed off when she noticed the look Gengetsu was giving her.

"She doesn't need wings," the girl in pink insisted.

Mugetsu licked her lips nervously. "Actually-"

"And that's not important right now," Gengetsu went on.

"That's right, I was demanding answers, and here I am not giving you the questions! Forgive me," Kotohime said with another polite bow, "my mind's a bit scattered right now. Probably because you two have been tampering with it," she said, and her smile shifted from charming to chilly. "What are you, and why did you stick me in an illusion?"

"We're demons," Gengetsu said calmly.

"And we created this dream world," Mugetsu piped in. "And-"

"A pretty boring looking one, though," Kotohime noted, looking around in case some scenery had popped up while she wasn't looking. No such luck. "What, you can manage a phantasm that fools all five senses but can't be bothered to decorate this place?"

The girl in the maid outfit scowled and snapped a finger. With as much fanfare as a lightbulb switching on, a large purple disc appeared in the void behind her, a round chunk missing from the top-left quarter as though a planet was passing in front of it. Mugetsu added a little waggling motion and a belt of pale blue stars appeared in a horizontal band flanking the moon, or sun, or whatever it was.

"Better?" she asked sarcastically.

"Better," nodded Kotohime. "Style always counts."

Gengetsu shrugged, and suddenly the outline of an enormous, three-dimensional cross appeared in front of the purple sun.

Kotohime tilted her head back and forth, regarding the addition. "Christian?" she asked.

"Style," the winged blonde replied with a thin smile. "How did you determine you were in an illusion?" she asked without preamble.

"_I'm _supposed to be the one asking questions right now, but... well, I figured it out almost immediately." Kotohime clasped her hands behind the small of her back and began pacing back and forth on the formless void, happy to explain her peerless detective skills. "I suddenly found myself walking down a street with no idea what I was doing there, and without the slightest taste of alcohol on my breath. Obviously someone was messing with my mind."

"Just from that?" Gengetsu deadpanned, crossing her arms much like her sister had earlier. "_Really?_"

"Oh, there were many other hints," continued Kotohime, giving her would-be captors a sympathetic look. "Sure, your Cirno and Rinnosuke were spot-on, but you got other folks, well, _wrong_. The red-herring with Alice as some sort of possessive psycho. Meiling was suddenly lazy and useless. Tenshi as some murderous masochist. And I don't know _what_ you were going for with Sakuya. On top of that you got some facts wrong, like Mystia never meeting the yama, but especially that whole tournament over the ruins. I was _there_, girls, I won it. Reimu didn't get anything but a night in the slammer."

Gengetsu heaved a sigh before turning to scowl at her sister. "I suppose that's what I get for putting you in charge."

Mugetsu flushed and planted her fists on her hips. "Hey, I did pretty well given who we were dealing with!"

"The seasons changed twice over the course of a single day! The technology level jumped all over the place!" accused the winged girl.

"Well, that last part was me," Kotohime admitted with a slight smile. "I figured since I was dreaming, I might as well have some fun, you know? Always wanted a proper sidearm and a police car. You're just lucky I kept my libido in check," she added with a wide smile. It faded at the sight of the two utterly dumbstruck demonesses. "What? I learned how to lucid dream at an early age, it's a useful skill."

Gengetsu's frown deepened, but she nodded as realization dawned. "That's why you found those ridiculous 'bean prints.' You were toying with us."

"It certainly wasn't _my_ idea!" Mugetsu quickly added.

"Forgive me my little amusements," the princess said, her smile returning. "I was curious to see what you'd do with such a ludicrous premise. You did well by trying to deflect the question of why the Akis would be involved by adding an investigation into those guns they were using," she grudgingly admitted. "And making it personal with Tenshi killing my bartender, that was another distraction too. Of course, both ended up raising their own set of questions."

"We don't often get the opportunity to improvise," said Gengetsu, her scowl relaxing somewhat.

"But I still don't see how we could have gotten things wrong!" complained Mugetsu. "We built the illusion from your own memories!"

Kotohime tapped her temple with a finger. "Anti-psychic defensive training. Frankly, I'm impressed you were able to get in at all."

"Or maybe our source material was suspect," Gengetsu said darkly.

"Do wha?"

"Exactly."

"So why go through all this trouble, anyway?" asked Kotohime. "Seems like building a dream world to entrap random dimensional travelers is a pretty intensive use of time and energy, so hopefully you have a good reason for it beyond 'giggles.'"

Gengetsu smiled unpleasantly. "I suppose you could think of us as… police officers."

Kotohime carefully maintained a neutral expression.

"There are some dangerous beings out there," Gengetsu continued. "Particularly unstable youkai, wicked hermits, dark magicians. We find a place for them."

The princess slowly nodded. "Sorta like Shinki, then."

"Oh, is that what she told you?" said Mugetsu with a derisive laugh.

"Rather than letting such threats roam free," Gengetsu continued, flashing her sibling an annoyed look, "we lock them safely away in a personalized realm of dreams, trapping them within their heart's desire. So a warlock lives in a fictional world he has already conquered. A shinigami desperate for a career change has a simple life as the gatekeeper of a mansion no one ever visits."

"And I got an exciting mystery to solve with a climactic battle at the end," Kotohime concluded. "Shootouts, car chases, the works."

"Precisely."

"Which means… you think I'm as dangerous as those other guys," she said quietly. She looked up at them, blinking her eyes in confusion and hurt. "Is… am I really that bad?"

Gengetsu cocked her head. "Did you not notice the havoc you raised during your visit to Makai?"

"Oh come on! Reimu and Marisa are even worse, and you guys didn't nab _them_!" Kotohime protested hotly.

The two demons flinched at the names.

"Well…" Gengetsu shifted uncomfortably.

Mugetsu cleared her throat, looking embarrassed. "We _tried_. There was a… breach, an escape, they retraced the trail and sprang one of our maximum-security prisoners-"

"She doesn't need to know this," interrupted an irate Gengetsu.

Kotohime stared for a moment, and then a slow smile spread across her face. "I see. They fought free. So," she went on, cracking her knuckles, "I'll just have to do the same."

"You're not nearly powerful enough," Gengetsu said bluntly. "If you stop resisting, we can erase your memory of this conversation and let you dream in peace."

"Ah, but there's a problem with your reasoning," Kotohime said, still smiling. "We're still in a dream realm, yeah?"

"Of a sort, yes."

"Well, in my dreams, as in real life, I always win," the princess said matter-of-factly as she drew her jitte. "So why don't _you_ come along quietly? You're under arrest for Grand Theft Princess and impersonating a miko. You have the right to create spellcards-"

"Why do they always fight?" muttered Mugetsu, as she and her sister drifted back a few paces from Kotohime, spreading out while staying close enough to support each other.

"Oh hey, quick question, which of you two is the older?" asked Kotohime suddenly.

The two girls exchanged a look. "Um, she is," Mugetsu said.

Which meant that, if anything Kotohime had learned over her career was accurate, wingless was the stronger of the pair. Better knock out the weak link early. "Killer, thanks," she said with a curt nod.

And she surged to the attack.

Kotohime launched herself forward, flying at full speed towards Gengetsu, arms swept back, robes fluttering in the not-wind, hands shining with purple power. The winged human floated frozen in shock for a moment as Kotohime swung a truncheon trailing violet flames at her face, but then Gengetsu seemed to shimmer, to ripple as through a heat haze, and she was gone.

The police chief spun with wasted momentum, glancing about wildly as she searched for a target. She spied another distortion in the void, but Mugetsu popped out instead. Before Kotohime could get a bead on her, the maid kicked her legs and flung her arms out like she was throwing confetti, unleashing a fan of flaming blue darts that sizzled and spat over Kotohime's head as the princess ducked beneath them. She answered with a volley of her own magic, but in the split-second her vision had been obscured by the danmaku, Mugetsu had vanished again.

On instinct Kotohime glanced over her shoulder – and Gengetsu was _right on top of her_, smiling as she raised a hand that released a pulse of angry crimson energy that rapidly expanded to fill Kotohime's vision. The princess desperately backpedaled as fast as she could, until the sphere of projectiles grew large enough for her to slip through a gap between the bolts of hostile magic. She'd no sooner navigated that attack than Mugetsu was back, attacking from above, loosing a swirling star-shaped spray of danmaku that forced Kotohime to twist and turn and roll to save herself.

Even so, with an angry hiss one of the projectiles burned a hole through her robes near her ankle. Kotohime stared at her wounded outfit in shock, barely managing to slip through the rest of Mugetsu's bullet pattern, only for that shock to deepen into outright fear as she heard the familiar rising tone of a particular magical attack charging up behind her.

Without bothering to look, Kotohime abruptly broke off her current vector and dove down and to her left. That weird purple moon-sun and outlined cross blurred across her vision, and then the void filled with a fierce white light, a throbbing chord of sound, an outburst of raw magic that made the police chief's teeth tingle and eyes throb.

"Why does everyone get to Spark except me?" she panted to no one in particular. Every time _she_ tried the attack she wound up exploding.

Mugetsu darted in front of her again, prompting a hasty burst of fire from Kotohime that disappeared into the distant darkness, then the police chief had to bob and weave to avoid the trail of golden danmaku the demoness had scattered in her wake like hostile breadcrumbs. The void rippled in front of Kotohime, and for one glorious moment Gengetsu was right in her sights.

The winged fiend lifted her hand to unleash another attack, but quickly aborted her attempt, wrapping her feathered pinions in front of her body to absorb Kotohime's hail of fire. The princess sustained it as long as she could, both her arms out in front of her as magical power pulsed out of her palms, but after a moment Gengetsu shot her a hateful glare, rippled, and disappeared-

Revealing Mugetsu, who shouted as she made a slashing motion with her hand that unleashed another spray of magical bullets.

Kotohime had barely time to go evasive, and felt sizzling projectiles frazzle her hair and scorch her robes from near-misses. She kept firing blindly, but by the time she was out of the thick of it, both demonesses had vanished.

She fought to catch her breath in the lull that followed, her heart and mind racing. These two were turning out to be obnoxiously worthy opponents, and the princess banished the suspicion that they weren't the kind of worthy opponent that sorely tested you before ultimately being defeated. Instead she tried to think of something that would give her the edge needed for victory.

Unfortunately she'd blown through her supply of explosives over the course of her trip through Makai, and had left all her heavy weapons at home even before that. Just when those magical super-grenades would have been pretty useful, too. She _could_ try smiling, of course, but after the tournament Kotohime had sworn to only use that in the direst of circumstances-

"Reconsidering your decision to resist?" taunted Mugetsu. The demon girl had reappeared to smirk down at the princess from above, making the princess seriously reconsider her vow of restraint.

Wait. There was always…

"Just remembering something I had up my sleeve," Kotohime retorted with a smile (but not The Smile). She flung out a pointing finger before jabbing her free hand down her sleeve. "I choose you! Suika Ibu-"

Uh oh. Kotohime's rummaging took on a desperate character.

Gengetsu shimmered into existence next to her sister. "What are you doing _now_?" she asked with exasperated sigh.

House keys, decoder ring, spare scrunchies, key to Marisa's house, emergency chopsticks- "I could've sworn I had her a minute ago," the princess muttered as she tried to peer past her arm and into her voluminous sleeves.

"Her? Who? What?" Mugetsu gave her sister a long-suffering glare. "See? _This_ is what I had to work with!"

Kotohime gave up her search, chewing her lip thoughtfully. "Oh dear," she said to no one in particular. She'd checked before she left on her mission, and hadn't run into anything that would have dislodged her in Gensokyo, so… hopefully Makai could handle a mini-Suika running about until Kotohime got back to retrieve her. An oni couldn't cause much more trouble than the likes of Marisa, right?

Gengetsu's expression hardened. "This has gone on quite long enough." The deceptively angelic-looking creature calmly stretched her arms out, hands shining with an intense white light-

It was a blizzard, a directed typhoon of blazing energy. Or all of the stars in the sky converging upon you in the space of a heartbeat. Kotohime got the impression of alternating, overlapping circular waves of danmaku emanating from each of Gengetsu's hands, so close that she could barely see between the individual barrages, but there was so much flying at her, so much information to process, and all so damned _fast_, that she could feel her brain blanking out parts of the attack instead of trying to comprehend all of it at once-

Kotohime stared dumbfounded until just the last second, when she curled up into a ball and hid her face with her arms, focusing all her magical might into a defensive screen. There was no possibility of fleeing or evading before-

Then she was tumbling, explosions all around her, in a world of noise and white light she could see through her eyelids…

Kotohime blinked. She was… drifting, or falling through a void. Her purple robes were scorched and tattered, her glorious red hair floating about freely as though she were underwater, and she was so very tired. Weird moon, nice color though. A good long sleep would be just-

"You never did anything with Letty," she suddenly realized.

Gengetsu rose into view, flying parallel to Kotohime without bothering to flap her wings. "Pardon?"

"Letty," repeated Kotohime. She managed a weak and shaky smile. "Remember? She promised Cirno they'd meet again. But she didn't. And Cirno didn't notice either."

The winged demon shot her sibling a look as she drifted over next to her sister. Mugetsu shrugged, flustered.

"Rinnosuke kinda disappeared too," the princess continued. She managed to halt her uncontrolled fall, slumped forward while hovering in a near-void, resting her hands on her thighs while her head hung. "Would've been... a good surprise to have him show up in the sky fortress. Just for future reference," she gasped.

"But you got so angry when I had the robot show up!" protested Mugetsu.

"Maybe because it wasn't foreshadowed?" theorized Gengetsu. "She willingly accepted the shopkeep as an ally, so-"

"Don't you take her side in this!" protested her sister, red-faced. "We've worked together long enough for me to know how to craft a dream, thank you very much."

"Yet despite that, you made so many-"

Kotohime shouted with the effort as she hurled a guttering purple fireball at Gengetsu's distracted noggin. But the winged girl calmly reached out, caught the attack in her open palm, and snuffed it out without even looking.

_Then_ Gengetsu turned her head to glare at Kotohime. "A worthy effort. But useless."

"My back-up plan was to try and turn you two against each other," admitted Kotohime with an exhausted smile. "But you were such a tempting target."

Mugetsu muttered something that sounded like agreement, but took up position next to her sibling to regard the princess. "Ready to give up?"

"Nope." Kotohime lifted her head to stare defiantly at her opponents. "Don't care who, what, or how powerful you think you are, I'm going to win this."

She barely had time to shield herself from the flare of magic the winged demon loosed at her, sending her spinning through the void again.

"You're forgetting," Gengetsu said quietly, but confidently, "that this is _our_ realm. We are in control."

The princess, aching and exhausted, slowly uncurled from her defensive ball. She was _not_ beaten, this was merely the point where, when all hope seemed lost, she tapped into reserves of heroic willpower and found the strength to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat.

Doing so required a snappy comeback.

"But not as much control as you think."

Which was pretty good, except the wrong person was talking.

Reality parted at a seam, tied off on either end by a cheery red bow. A tall, stately blonde woman stepped through the gap, idly twirling a white umbrella in her gloved hands. She'd changed clothes since Kotohime had seen her last, and now wore a lacy mobcap and a ruffled white dress under a purple Chinese tabard, a strange blend of Eastern and Western styles that matched her unearthly beauty.

Yukari Yakumo bowed politely to Mugetsu and Gengetsu, then straightened up to stare at them, her amber eyes narrowed slightly, her expression inscrutable but vaguely disapproving.

And the worst thing about it, Kotohime bitterly reflected, was that the sisters' attention was firmly on Yukari now, as if _she_ was the greater threat.

"Miss Yakumo," Gengetsu said warily. "What a surprise."

Mugetsu was completely gobsmacked. "But… how did you-"

"I _am_ the youkai of boundaries," Yukari stated. "Though I can't take all the credit, you two have been strangely distracted as of late."

Kotohime tried to clamp back her annoyance at being used as a diversion.

"And what brings you to our world, uninvited?" asked the winged girl.

Yukari's bangs swayed as she tilted her head towards Kotohime. "Her, of course."

"Oh come on!" the princess in question said crossly. "No way in hell I'm letting you rescue me! I've _got_ this!"

The gap youkai took in the scorched and tattered patches of Kotohime's outfit and wordlessly arched a delicate eyebrow.

"And I'm inclined to agree," Gengetsu said. "About the refusal to rescue her, at least," she quickly clarified.

"See?" Kotohime floated over to stand shoulder to shoulder with her former opponents before turning to glare at Yukari some more, her arms crossed. She tried to ignore Mugetsu's baffled look. "I'm staying until I bust myself out," the policewoman insisted.

"She doesn't belong here," Yukari continued evenly, as though Kotohime hadn't said anything.

"She doesn't belong _anywhere_," replied Gengetsu. "She has no place in your world, and can only cause chaos elsewhere. The only exception is our realm, where she will be safe-"

"The important thing," Kotohime interrupted, "is that I am totally winning this fight and can break out of here on my own. Five more minutes, tops."

Yukari tilted her head, gloved fingers tapping her chin speculatively, her golden gaze still locked on the sisters. "I _could_ battle you for her freedom-"

Kotohime could feel the energies gathering around her would-be captors. "But are you sure you would win?" asked Mugetsu, a challenging grin on her face.

"There are very few who could hope to prevail against us individually," said Gengetsu. "Fewer still who could survive when faced with our combined power. You are formidable, Miss Yakumo, but not _that_ formidable, I think."

"And you'd be up against _me_, too," the princess added, not wanting to be left out. "I'm not letting you 'rescue' me without a fight." Again, she had to pretend not to see the perplexed expressions on her unlikely allies' faces.

But Yukari only nodded, as if she'd just finished a somewhat challenging math problem. "I could simply take the princess," she suggested.

Kotohime bristled. "You wouldn't dare."

"We would have her the next time she crossed worlds or fell asleep," Mugetsu said with a laugh. "You'd just delay the inevitable."

Again, Yukari nodded in acknowledgement of the facts. "Alternatively…" She smiled, and despite the friendliness of the expression, it was somehow more threatening than anything else she could have done. "I could take _you_."

There was a disorienting blur of movement as the four of them were swallowed up by a new scene as abruptly as though they'd fallen out of the sky. Kotohime and the demon sisters winced against the sudden blinding sunlight. After that void, the buzz of insects, the heat of the sun, and the refreshing breeze were almost overwhelming.

"Where are we?" demanded Mugetsu, rattled and fidgeting in the unfamiliar environment.

"Gensokyo," murmured Yukari cryptically. Kotohime saw the gap youkai seated overhead on one of her seams in reality, her lacy parasol out to protect her from the sun and her paper fan spread to cover the lower half of her face, which probably meant she thought she was being clever.

The princess sighed and tried to get her bearings, shading her eyes as she searched for landmarks. "Well, there's Youkai Mountain," she said after a moment. "Fat lot of good that does us, though. The obvious thing is that we're in a field of sunflowers."

That was the problem, really, they were surrounded by bright orange-yellow flowers taller than they were, which severely limited the expression "as far as the eye could see."

The two deceptively angelic-looking demons noticed too. "Sunflowers?" said a clearly puzzled Mugetsu.

Gengetsu's wings flapped once as she settled down, a confident smile returning to her face. "I must admit that the scenery is quite picturesque, Miss Yakumo, but I'm curious as to how this would help you."

"What _I'm_ curious about is why all the flowers are facing us," Kotohime said.

Mugetsu and Gengetsu blinked and took a closer look at their surroundings. Every single brown-faced flower had at some point swiveled to face the four intruders. It was unpleasantly like being in the middle of a hostile crowd… which was a pretty ridiculous sensation to get from a bunch of plants, all things considered.

"They're supposed to follow the sun across the sky, right?" Kotohime went on. "I always wondered how they managed that. Didn't think plants had muscles-"

"W-whose-" Mugetsu gulped, paling despite the harsh sunlight, "whose flowers are these?"

"You _did_ mention that there were a few individuals who could hope to stand against you," Yukari pointed out.

"I think this is the Garden of the Sun," Kotohime supplied as her geographic skills kicked in. "Kinda obvious really, I can't think of any other fields of sunflowers in Gensokyo. Embarrassed not to have caught it-"

Mugetsu whimpered.

"You win," panted Gengetsu, a few white feathers tumbling from her shivering wings like dandruff. "You can have the girl. Just get us out of here."

"'_Girl?'_" repeated an irritated Kotohime.

"GET US OUT OF HERE NOW!" shouted Gengetsu desperately. "_PLEASE!_"

There was a rustling sound, as though someone or something was moving through the foliage, and Kotohime turned to face the newcomer-

Only for the entire field of sunflowers to fold up like a futon, dwindling until it was neatly closed by one of Yukari's gaps, leaving the four empowered females standing in the black void again.

"Kinda gloomy after all that bright sunshine," Kotohime noted, looking around with distaste. She missed the warm breeze already.

"So are we in agreement then?" asked Yukari, her parasol and fan stowed, as she took a step towards Gengetsu and Mugetsu.

"Yes!" gasped the older sister. Mugetsu was standing close and looked near tears, her white-knuckled hands gripping Gengetsu's arm. "Take her and go! Just get out of here!"

Yukari nodded to herself, half-turned to walk away, then reconsidered and took another step closer to the siblings. She leaned forward slightly, and Kotohime was grateful that she wasn't the target of the glare Yukari was giving them. "And I trust I won't find you kidnapping Gensokyans again? Whether from their dreams or otherwise?"

The two dreamweavers quickly shook their heads, like children recovering from a spanking.

But Yukari leaned in closer. "What was that?"

"No, Miss Yukari!" Gengetsu and Mugetsu chorused.

"Good." The gap youkai straightened up. "You're free to find prey elsewhere, of course. But rest assured that if I catch you-"

"Excuse _me_," Kotohime interjected, fuming from being ignored for so long. "I think you're forgetting something." Three pairs of eyes gave her curious looks, and the princess jabbed a finger at the sisters. "Our fight wasn't finished."

Gengetsu hissed in exasperation and turned to Yukari. "Can you take her home now?"

Kotohime swelled up for a good tirade, but before she could open her mouth, Yukari nodded, and suddenly she was falling.

-x-

* * *

><p>-17-<p>

_Gensokyo  
>A Fine Afternoon<em>

Kotohime landed gracefully, of course, tucking and rolling upon contact with the ground purely by reflex, bobbing up at the end in a combat stance, her jitte up and ready, her eyes flashing with alertness. Sadly, the cow standing mere feet away didn't seem particularly impressed by any of it. Kotohime strung together a litany of her favorite epithets and stowed her weapon.

"That wasn't very lady-like, professional, _or_ befitting a princess."

Yukari was leaning out of a gap in the air above Kotohime, her elbows resting on the edge of the spatial anomaly to prop up her chin. "Surely that violates a statue on foul language," she went on, her golden eyes glinting with amusement.

The police chief scowled at her. "Are you here for a reason?"

"No, please, don't thank me too much," the youkai replied, rolling her eyes and heaving her bosom in a hearty sigh.

"Even if I _had_ needed your help to escape, you still cut my battle short," Kotohime shot back. "So at worst we're even." She looked around, pointedly ignoring Yukari. They were in a pasture on a hill, in clear view of the human village a short distance away. It was hot.

"I suppose that makes a sort of sense-"

"Just what time of year is it?" Kotohime interrupted. "I left for Makai around… late fall? How long have I been gone?"

"Time passes differently in different worlds," Yukari supplied unhelpfully.

Kotohime groaned and clutched her forehead. "Wonderful. I have a lovely outing, poke around another world or two, and get to look forward to a huge backlog when I get home." Without a backward glance she set off towards the village, her stride confident and purposeful.

She carried on until she passed a lamppost, which Yukari stepped out from behind despite the slender pole being totally unable of concealing her. "I-"

"I'm definitely going to have to put those two on file," Kotohime immediately interrupted. "They're certainly one of the bigger threats I've bumped into."

"They are quite powerful, yes," Yukari agreed, keeping pace with the marching princess by bobbing along on a floating gap, her parasol out to block the shining sun.

"Even if they went to pieces at the end. Wonder what made them freak out?"

"No matter how deadly the opponent, there is always one they fear," replied the gap youkai.

"Yeah, I guess. Reimu and Marisa always tense up if you talk about red-headed maids around them, even though _I_ always got along well with-" Kotohime came to a sudden stop, blinking in realization. "Wait, you mean Yuuka?" At Yukari's nod, the policewoman shrugged and continued walking. "She's not so bad, though. Got a softer side, even if it isn't always obvious."

"Oh?"

"Oh. Think she gets lonely sometimes. I've seen that flower field of hers drooping even when the sun's just as bad as today." She swiped some sweat off her brow and kept her arm up, shading her face as she peered into the distance. Then she noticed something under her sleeve. "Hey!" she squealed, her face quite literally lighting up with a pearly luminescence. Kotohime uncoiled the glowing crystalline bramble she'd snatched from Makai. "I was wondering where this went!"

Yukari arched a delicate eyebrow. "A memento?"

"A botanical sample," Kotohime corrected. "I've always said Gensokyo needed some royal gardens, and this puppy will make a good start. Or half of it will, anyway." With a firm tug on each end she broke the strand of alien vegetation in two, shoving one length down a sleeve and looping the other around her wrist like a bracelet. She abruptly turned off the road.

"Changed your mind about going home?" asked Yukari.

Kotohime shot her an annoyed glance. "Figure I sorta owe Yuuka one, and she ought to get a kick out of this. Maybe she can give tips on how to grow more."

"You owe her one, but you don't owe me one?" Yukari repeated, sounding vaguely amused.

"I didn't _ask_ you to get involved, I didn't _need_ you to get involved, and I don't know _why_ you got involved anyway," Kotohime huffed. "And don't tell me you're policing the boundaries between dreams and reality, or-"

"I assure you, I have no intention of impinging upon your jurisdiction," Yukari answered calmly.

"So why then?"

Yukari looked up at the blue dome of the sky, that faint smile on her face like she was the only one who got the joke. "I've always had a soft spot for dreamers," she replied. And for a moment Kotohime thought Yukari looked younger, girlish and carefree rather than ageless and inscrutable, her eyes a shade of violet rather than gold. "Your dreams should take you somewhere, not put you in a cage. Using a dream to keep someone from finding Gensokyo… well, that's just criminal." She closed her eyes for a moment, chuckled, and let her head drop forward, her golden gaze meeting Kotohime's. "Am I making any sense?"

"About as much as usual," grumbled the princess.

"I can live with that."

"And I'll have to learn to put up with it." Kotohime came to another halt, heaved a deep sigh, and reached down her sleeve.

Yukari caught the bronze object the princess tossed at her almost without thinking, then glanced down at what was in her gloved hands. "Your badge?" She sounded genuinely surprised.

"_A _badge," corrected Kotohime. "If you're going to run border patrol I might as well deputize you. We've got too many vigilantes zipping around as it is."

"I'm touched," Yukari said with a smile.

"In the head, but as long as you follow orders I'll overlook it. Now," began Kotohime, sweeping an arm across the glorious vista spread out before them, "I'll probably put you under Lieutenant Cirno for the first week or two of training, and then you'll be patrolling with Officer Lorelei…" She trailed off when she noticed that Yukari had very politely raised her hand. "Yes?"

"You do realize you're no longer in the dream world?" the gap youkai asked.

Kotohime blinked and tilted her head a few degrees. "And?"

"Excuse me, you're no longer in that _particular_ dream world," Yukari corrected herself with a smile. "Until we next meet, your highness." And with that she bowed slightly as the gap she was riding on swallowed her whole, leaving behind no sign she had ever existed aside from the annoyed expression on Kotohime's face.

Gensokyo's police chief glanced around, not really expecting to find Yukari anywhere, and rolled her eyes. On the downside, she'd just given one of the most powerful and least comprehensible entities in Gensokyo a fraction of her civic authority. But the good news was that the next time Yukari misbehaved she could demand her badge! So it all evened out.

The princess/policewoman continued on towards the Garden of the Sun, already planning ahead to the paperwork she had to do. The worst part was coming up with the forms to fill out. Was there even a citation for dream-napping?

Maybe Yuuka would have some ideas. Kotohime continued her march home.

-x-

* * *

><p><strong><em>Author's Notes:<em>**

_Sunflower _buds_ are heliotropic, mature sunflowers are not. It's a popular misconception._

_So, that took awhile, didn't it? A combination of being too busy to write part of the time and being in the wrong frame of mind to write a silly Kotohime story the rest of the time, I'm afraid. Plus there was the nature of the story itself. _

_I always try to have the ending decided before I write the story leading up to it, and see what happens when I try to link the two. This story gave me an excuse to include more nonsensical sequences and gags that would break the suspension of disbelief in a 'proper' narrative, and take less care than usual that everything made sense. The result was surprisingly difficult to write at times, as I came up with some scenes I wanted to include but then had trouble finding a way to tie them together. So it turns out grounding a story in reality can be somewhat helpful, while plotting out a wild dream can be hard.  
><em>

_Hopefully the result was at least entertaining. But goodness, two years since the last update? Kotohime has a lot of catching up to do..._

-x-

* * *

><p>-x-<p>

"It wasn't your fault," Gengetsu assured her sister, a comforting arm wrapped over Mugetsu's shoulders as the wingless demon dabbed at her eyes with a handkerchief. "We just... ran into a wild card, that's all."

"I did my best," Mugetsu sniffled. "Tried to give her want she wanted, b-but-" She was cut off by a hiccup.

"You did very well," insisted her sister.

"It all went wrong so quickly!" wailed Mugetsu. "She never went to investigate the dollmaker's house, and then she got those two goddesses involved for a stupid reason! And she wanted to do something with modern weapons, so I gave her that, and then she wanted cars and motorcycles, so I did that, but when I put in that space station she scoffed at _that-_" The extradimensional being dressed in a maid outfit trailed off so she could blow her nose.

"Sometimes it's safer to play it close, give them want they want when they want it, instead of planning too far ahead," Gengetsu said with a gentle smile, rubbing her sister's spine. "We would've been fine if Yukari hadn't gotten involved. I _thought_ I felt her poking around earlier, when I wasn't there to watch. I'm guessing either the bar or the river. See, just goes to show even _I_ can make mistakes."

"I'm sure I made more, though," said Mugetsu gloomily, her head hanging forward.

"Well, you need to learn to pace your action sequences," Gengetsu lectured, brushing her longer golden hair away from her face. "You loaded a lot on the end, with the duel in the bar and the motorcycle chase and the climax all blurring into each other."

Mugetsu sighed. "That's why I cut the oni fight, but that just made her angry-"

"Hey!"

Both siblings jolted with surprise as a patch of darkness fell apart to reveal a bat-winged blonde girl in a black dress. She looked about wildly, her yellow eyes wide, her mouth hanging open to reveal unnervingly long canines. "Where, where did it go? My lake, my _blood_…" She finally seemed to notice the sisters. "Who are you? Wait… why do I remember…"

Gengetsu and Mugetsu traded glances, then simultaneously broke out into devious grins. "Well," said the older sibling, "if Miss Yakumo wants us to send troublemakers back to Gensokyo…"

-x-

* * *

><p>-x-<p>

"So all in all, not something worth traveling to another world for, but it's got a market, probably lower-income customers out to feel highbrow for an evening. Serve it with meals or nuts." A surprisingly deep belch accompanied the squeaky speaker. "Not as bad as your first attempt, at least. What's next?"

Sara rose and hurried over to the wine racks covering one of the room's walls, hesitating only a moment before pulling out another bottle for her unexpected guest.

"I think you'll like this," the one-time Makai gatekeeper said as she returned to her seat. "Everyone who's tasted it says it's pretty good."

"Guess we'll see whether they were trying to make you feel better or not," said a miniaturized Suika Ibuki from her cross-legged seat atop the table, surrounded by empty shot glasses and unfinished wine bottles. "Lucky for you, there's an oni around to give you an honest opinion."

"Lucky me," muttered Sara, her expression back to her default look of vague suspicion and concern. Between the little creature's shrill voice and harsh criticisms, she had an urge to toss her out the window. Nevertheless, she popped the cork and carefully poured a thimbleful of wine for the ginger-haired horned girl.

Without further word, Suika lifted her improvised cup with both arms, somehow avoiding toppling over or sloshing herself in the face as she drank. She made a little surprised sound at the first sip, then proceeded to down the rest of it in one go.

"Fwah!" she gasped, rocking back on her rear end. "Very sweet, but the acidity gives it a refreshing dry feel. Flavor's excellent, reminiscent of brown sugar, but I can't quite place it… a native vine?"

Sara nodded. "Grows around Vina. Hence the name, you know."

Suika gave a shrug and motioned for her host to pour another shot. This time the oni savored her drink before chugging it, leaning in to take some deep breaths. "Good aroma, almost smells like pecans…" She took another sip, mulling the sparkling amber drink over for a bit. "Oak barrel?" she guessed.

The demonic winemaker nodded again. "You're good. Yes, I had to dip into my savings to import the seeds and worked my tail off to get the trees to grow, but-"

"It was absolutely worth it," Suika finished. "You could build a whole business around this stuff. I'll be taking a bottle home. Now, let's see if you can top it."

Sara flushed with pride, her face momentarily matching her pink hair and eyes, as she hurried to provide another sample for the tiny winetaster who had unexpectedly staggered onto her vineyard from who-knew-where.

"Oooh, this is good, too. Almost leathery aroma, attractive garnet black color. Wonderful interplay of dark berries and spices, with a hint of cocoa. You'd want this with cheese, and before a meal so your palate is fresh enough to appreciate it…"

-x-


End file.
